H

H, eighth letter of the English and Latin alphabets. Originally derived from the Semitic 2, cheth, the letter represented the sound of an aspirate (see Phonetics) in the Greek and Latin alphabets, as it does usually in modern English. In vernacular Latin the aspiration was dropped. As a result, h is normally silent in the Romance languages, as it is in many English words, such as honour. It is silent also in several English dialects and is pronounced erroneously or dropped in the cockney dialect of London. The letter h combines into digraphs with other consonants to form various consonant sounds.