H

Latin alphabet
	A	B	C	D
E	F	G	H	I	J
K	L	M	N	O	P
Q	R	S	T	U	V
	W	X	Y	Z

H is the eighth letter of the latin alphabet. In reference, it is spelled aitch (or sometimes haitch by speakers of dialects—primarily Irish and Australian—which pronounce an h in the name of the letter itself). The English name aitch /eItS/ or haitch /heItS/ derives from Old French /atS/ > Middle English /a:tS/. /heItS/ is thus a spelling pronunciation based on the sound usually associated with the English letter.

The Semitic letter ח (ĦÃÂªt) probably represented the phoneme /X/ (pharyngeal voiceless fricative) (IPA [ħ]). The form of the letter probably stood for a fence. Early Greek H stood for /h/, but later on &Eta or &eta (ÃÂta>/ita/) stood for /E:/. In Modern Greek this phoneme fell together with /i/, similar to the English development where EA /E:/ and EE /e:/ came to be both pronounced /i:/ . In Etruscan and Latin, the sound value /h/ was maintained, but all Romance languages lost the sound - only Romanian borrowed the /h/ phoneme from its neighbouring Slavic languages and Castilian /x/ developed [h] allophones in some Spanish-speaking countries. In German, h is typically used as a vowel lengthener as well as the letter for the phoneme /h/. This may be because /h/ was sometimes lost between vowels in German, but it may also have to do with the fact that Romance lost /h/. Hence, h is used in many spelling systems in digraphs and trigraphs like ch in Spanish, English /tS/, French /S/ from /tS/, Italian /k/, German /x/ etc.

Hotel represents the letter H in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Meanings for H

In anime (Japanese animation), H is the abbreviation for "hentai"; See also Ecchi.
In biochemistry, H is the symbol for histidine.
In chemistry, H is the symbol for hydrogen.
In international licence plate codes, H stands for Hungary.
In mathematics, blackboard bold represents the quaternions.
In the Metric system,
- H is the symbol for the SI derived unit for electric inductance, the henry.
- h, hecto, is the SI prefix meaning hundred, 10².
In music, H is a note in the German system, corresponding to B natural.
In physics, h is Planck's constant.
H is the stage name of Ian Watkins of former pop group Steps.
In computing, ^H is often used jokingly to indicate a spelling mistake or deletion. This is because some operating systems print ^H when pressing the backspace key if the keyboard is not configured properly.