Gol he

Gol he written thrice (showing the non-isolated forms)

Gol he and do-cas͟hmī he in comparison (word-final and word-medial positions)

Gol he, also called choṭī he, is one of the two variants of the Arabic letter he/hāʾ (ه) that are in use in the Urdu alphabet, the other variant being the do-cas͟hmī he (ھ), also called hā-'e-mak͟hlūt. The letter is named for its shape in the isolated form, gol meaning "round" in Hindustani, to distinguish it from the do-cas͟hmī he, which is really a calligraphic variant of the "two-eyed" regular he in the medial position (ﻬ‎). Its various non-isolated forms originated in the Nastaʿlīq script or calligraphic hand, though various zigzag (medial) and hook (final) forms of hāʾ have existed before the script was developed.

Use in Urdu

The letter ہ‎ (encoded at U+06C1) replaces the regular he ه‎ (encoded at U+0647) in Urdu (as well as the Punjabi Shahmukhi alphabet) for the voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] but is usually pronounced [ɑː] in the word-final position (exception include certain two-letter words such as وہ /ʋoː/ or کہ /keː/) while the do-cas͟hmī he ھ‎ is used in digraphs for aspiration and breathy voice and hence never used word-initially.

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskh glyph form: (Help)	ہ‎	ـہ‎	ـہـ‎	ہـ‎
Nastaʿlīq glyph form:	ہ	ــــہ	ــــہــــ	ہــــ

For comparison, the do-cas͟hmī he (not used word-initially) and the regular Arabic letter:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskh glyph form: (Help)	ھ‎	ـھ‎	ـھـ‎	ھـ‎
Nastaʿlīq glyph form:	ھ	ــــھ	ــــھــــ	ھــــ

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskh glyph form: (Help)	ه‎	ـه‎	ـهـ‎	هـ‎
Nastaʿlīq glyph form:	ه	ــــه	ــــهــــ	هــــ

See also

• Nastaʿlīq script