Ḥet

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ḤET

ḤET (Heb. חֵת ;ח), the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its numerical value is therefore 8. It is pronounced as a fricative pharyngeal. The earliest representation of the ḥet is in a pictograph of a fence ,. Variants of the latter form survived in the Phoenician , Hebrew , , and Samaritan . The Aramaic ḥet dropped two of the horizontal bars and by the eighth century b.c.e. it had already become . This is the basic form of the modern Hebrew ח . The Arabic , developed through the Nabatean . In the Syriac and other eastern Aramaic scripts the ḥet developed as follows: , . . From the GLYenician ḥet the Greek "H" (the Ionian vowel eta) developed, but in Latin it regained its consonantal value (fricative laryngeal). See *Alphabet, Hebrew.

[Joseph Naveh]

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