Heth
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Arabic script |
Template:Semxlit is the reconscructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician Template:Semxlit 
, Syriac Template:Semxlit ܚ, Hebrew Template:Semxlit (also Template:Semxlit, heth) Template:Ivrit, and Arabic Template:ArabDIN Template:Ar (in abjadi order).
Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either pharyngeal ([ħ]), or velar ([x]) (the two Proto-Semitic phonemes having merged in Canaanite). In Arabic, the letter was split in two: unmodified Template:ArabDIN Template:Ar represents [ħ], while ḫāʼ Template:Ar represents [x].
The letter shape ultimately goes back to a hieroglyph for "courtyard",
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(possibly named Template:Semxlit in the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, while the name goes rather back to Template:Semxlit, the name reconstructed for a letter derived from a hieroglyph for "thread",
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The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Eta (Η), Latin H and Cyrillic И. While H is still a consonant in the Latin alphabet, whereas the Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have come to represent vowel sounds.