How do you say the letter H?
- Thread starter Luke
- Start date
Joshua Farrell
FP's Housekeeper
If I didn't have a plastic cast in my mouth to keep stitches together, I would tell you right now how I would say it.
IAAM Radio
Paragon
Depends on which country you are in and what you're looking at 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ (ḥêṯ) most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative (ħ). The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts.
The Greek eta ⟨Η⟩ in the Archaic period still represented /h/ (later on it came to represent a long vowel, /ɛː/). In this context, the letter eta is also known as heta to underline this fact. Thus, in the Old Italic alphabets, the letter heta of the Euboean alphabet was adopted with its original sound value /h/.
Etruscan and Latin had /h/ as a phoneme, but almost all Romance languages lost the sound—Romanian later re-borrowed the /h/ phoneme from its neighbouring Slavic languages, and Spanish developed a secondary /h/ from /f/, before losing it again; various Spanish dialects have developed [h] as allophone of /s/ in some Spanish-speaking countries. ⟨H⟩ is also used in many spelling systems in digraphs and trigraphs, such as ⟨ch⟩ which represents /tʃ/ in Spanish and English, /ʃ/ in French and Portuguese, /k/ in Italian, French and English, and /x/ in German, Czech, Polish and Slovak.
[edit] Name in EnglishIn almost all dialects of English, the name for the letter is pronounced /ˈeɪtʃ/ and spelled ⟨aitch⟩[1] or occasionally ⟨eitch⟩. The pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ and hence a spelling of ⟨haitch⟩ is often considered to be h-adding and hence nonstandard. It is, however, a feature of Hiberno-English[2] and other varieties of English, such as those of Malaysia, India and Singapore. In Northern Ireland it is a shibboleth as Protestant schools teach aitch and Catholics haitch.[3] In Australia, this has also been attributed to Catholic school teaching and is estimated to be in use by 60% of the population.[4]
The perceived name of the letter affects the choice of indefinite article before initialisms beginning with H: for example "an HTML page" or "a HTML page". The pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ may be a hypercorrection formed by analogy with the names of the other letters of the alphabet, most of which include the sound they represent.[5]
The non-standard haitch pronunciation of h has spread in England, being used by approximately 24% of English people born since 1982[6] and polls continue to show this pronunciation becoming more common among younger native speakers. Despite this increasing number, careful speakers of English continue to pronounce aitch in the standard way, although the non-standard pronunciation is also attested as a legitimate variant.[7]
Authorities disagree about the history of the letter's name. The Oxford English Dictionary says the original name of the letter was [ˈaha]; this became [ˈaka] in Vulgar Latin, passed into English via Old French [ˈatʃ], and by Middle English was pronounced [ˈaːtʃ]. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language derives it from French hache from Latin haca or hic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ (ḥêṯ) most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative (ħ). The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts.
The Greek eta ⟨Η⟩ in the Archaic period still represented /h/ (later on it came to represent a long vowel, /ɛː/). In this context, the letter eta is also known as heta to underline this fact. Thus, in the Old Italic alphabets, the letter heta of the Euboean alphabet was adopted with its original sound value /h/.
Etruscan and Latin had /h/ as a phoneme, but almost all Romance languages lost the sound—Romanian later re-borrowed the /h/ phoneme from its neighbouring Slavic languages, and Spanish developed a secondary /h/ from /f/, before losing it again; various Spanish dialects have developed [h] as allophone of /s/ in some Spanish-speaking countries. ⟨H⟩ is also used in many spelling systems in digraphs and trigraphs, such as ⟨ch⟩ which represents /tʃ/ in Spanish and English, /ʃ/ in French and Portuguese, /k/ in Italian, French and English, and /x/ in German, Czech, Polish and Slovak.
[edit] Name in EnglishIn almost all dialects of English, the name for the letter is pronounced /ˈeɪtʃ/ and spelled ⟨aitch⟩[1] or occasionally ⟨eitch⟩. The pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ and hence a spelling of ⟨haitch⟩ is often considered to be h-adding and hence nonstandard. It is, however, a feature of Hiberno-English[2] and other varieties of English, such as those of Malaysia, India and Singapore. In Northern Ireland it is a shibboleth as Protestant schools teach aitch and Catholics haitch.[3] In Australia, this has also been attributed to Catholic school teaching and is estimated to be in use by 60% of the population.[4]
The perceived name of the letter affects the choice of indefinite article before initialisms beginning with H: for example "an HTML page" or "a HTML page". The pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ may be a hypercorrection formed by analogy with the names of the other letters of the alphabet, most of which include the sound they represent.[5]
The non-standard haitch pronunciation of h has spread in England, being used by approximately 24% of English people born since 1982[6] and polls continue to show this pronunciation becoming more common among younger native speakers. Despite this increasing number, careful speakers of English continue to pronounce aitch in the standard way, although the non-standard pronunciation is also attested as a legitimate variant.[7]
Authorities disagree about the history of the letter's name. The Oxford English Dictionary says the original name of the letter was [ˈaha]; this became [ˈaka] in Vulgar Latin, passed into English via Old French [ˈatʃ], and by Middle English was pronounced [ˈaːtʃ]. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language derives it from French hache from Latin haca or hic.
Which ever country you are in is irrelevant. We are discussing in the English context (ie. modern English is the dominant language), so I believe using the Oxford dictionary or Macquarie dictionary would be authoritative enough to determine the correct pronounciation.
IAAM Radio
Paragon
DavidL.
Since you want to be technical 🙂
The problem with the question is it does not ask, "What is the correct way to pronounce the letter H", it asks, "How do you pronounce the letter H"?
Based on the way the way the question is asked there is no correct answer. Everyone may defend until they are blue in the face but no one will be correct because the question does not imply it even wants a technical definition. It's Specified what it seeks, How Do You Pronounce the Letter H. Giving you two options One being the more articulate and the other more slang.
Since you want to be technical 🙂
The problem with the question is it does not ask, "What is the correct way to pronounce the letter H", it asks, "How do you pronounce the letter H"?
Based on the way the way the question is asked there is no correct answer. Everyone may defend until they are blue in the face but no one will be correct because the question does not imply it even wants a technical definition. It's Specified what it seeks, How Do You Pronounce the Letter H. Giving you two options One being the more articulate and the other more slang.
The Reverend
Paragon
Its all about accents and regional variations of english. You can say its pronounced aitch because it says so in the dictionary, but at the end of the day the dictionary doesnt contain every word used by english speaking people today therefore isnt a 100 % accurate representation of the english language with all its complexities. So whether or not the dictionary tells us that the correct pronunciation is aitch, it doesnt matter because many people say haitch.DavidL said:
You did say in your post: "Your supposed to put an hhhh to it." implying that was the correct way, so you're sort of contradicting yourself. I agree that there isn't a correct way according to the structure of the question, but technically (as you please 🙂), it should be "aitch".cfotoceo said:
We are talking about a single letter in the alphabet, not some fancy word which may have variations because of some Latin root. :yes: And the general consensus among dictionaries does use "aitch", so it's not really about accents or regional variations, it's about roots of the pronunciation, as with any word in the dictionary.Penguin said:
IAAM Radio
Paragon
LoL, this topic is going nowhere. Yes we all know the correct way in which H is supposed to be pronounced. the question is, " How Do you Pronounce H with a poll. The creator of the topic never asked for the right way. He simply asked how each of us pronounces it. Now we have armchair English Professors telling each other they are wrong.
Reality is no one is wrong based on how the questions is presented.
Then again I did state, "you're supposed to put an hhhh to it" I was being funny about it but at the same time some locations actually do put the hhh to it.
Reality is no one is wrong based on how the questions is presented.
Then again I did state, "you're supposed to put an hhhh to it" I was being funny about it but at the same time some locations actually do put the hhh to it.
The Reverend
Paragon
Lol, I know. I was just sort of standing up for the Haitcher's because david was saying that they were wrong. I wouldnt exactly call myself an english professor though :lol:cfotoceo said:
I pronounce it 'haitch'. There's really no point trying to convince each other that whichever is the "correct" way. So what if 'aitch' or 'haitch' is the right way to pronounce H? There's no right or wrong when it comes to phonetics; it's idiosyncratic. 🙂
The Reverend
Paragon
Exactly :yes:Tressy said:
That was before my post edit.Penguin said:
I realise I do sound a little mean after the edit though. 🙁 Just felt that I had to add something to show that there's really no big deal about which way you pronounce it just that it makes you different from the other person. 🙂
Ok, then that's cleared up. I only went on because you made an authoritative claim, which had appeared to have no common English backing.cfotoceo said:
@Penguin, I never directly said the "haitchers" were wrong. I only disagreed when John said "you're supposed to put an hhhh to it" which is obviously contradictory to the purpose of the question.
Abu Taj al Deen
Paragon
Haha. What an awesome thread.
The answer is 'Aitch.'
The answer is 'Aitch.'
Poopy Head
Seasoned Veteran
OMG WE NEED NEGATIVE REP BACK BECAUSE OF THIS POST 😡 Just kidding, :lol: , even if I was, haters gonna hate.Tressy said:
Anyway, aitch. It's the proper way, it's the way everyone was taught. Supposed to, anyway.
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