Misplaced Pages

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ĥ" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on
Esperanto
Language Grammar Phonology Orthography (Braille) Vocabulary Etymology
History Zamenhof Proto-Esperanto Unua Libro Dua Libro La Esperantisto Fundamento de Esperanto Declaration of Boulogne Montevideo Resolution Manifesto of Rauma Manifesto of Prague Modern evolution of Esperanto
Culture Esperanto movement Esperantist Esperantujo Literature Music Film La Espero Libera Folio Literatura Mondo Native speakers Libraries Pop culture references Publications Symbols Profanity Zamenhof Day
Organizations and services World Esperanto Congress Akademio de Esperanto Universal Esperanto Association World Esperanto Youth Organization International Youth Congress Esperanto Youth Week World Anational Association Encyclopedia Pasporta Servo Plouézec Meetings European Esperanto Union Europe–Democracy–Esperanto Panamerican Congress Skolta Esperanto Ligo
By country Austria Bulgaria China‎ Czech Republic‎ Hungary Japan Korea Malaysia Poland Romania Slovakia Soviet Union
Related topics Auxiliary language Constructed language Ido Homaranismo Linguistic discrimination
Wikimedia Constructed languages portal Task force Outline Esperanto Misplaced Pages (Vikipedio) Vikivortaro Vikicitaro Vikifontaro Vikilibroj Vikikomunejo Vikispecoj Vikinovaĵoj Vikivojaĵo
v t e

Ĥ or ĥ is a letter of some extended Latin alphabets, most prominently a consonant in Esperanto orthography, where it represents a voiceless velar fricative or voiceless uvular fricative . Its name in Esperanto is ĥo (pronounced /xo/), or ĥi in the Kalocsay abecedary.

It is also used in the revised Demers/Blanchet/St Onge orthography for Chinook Jargon.

In the case of the minuscule, some fonts place the circumflex centered above the entire base letter h, others over the riser of the letter, and others over the shoulder.

ĥ in the fonts Code2000, Sylfaen, Pragmatica Esperanto

Ĥ is the eleventh letter in Esperanto orthography. Although it is written as hx and hh respectively in the x-system and h-system workarounds, it is normally written as H with a circumflex: ĥ.

History

"Ĥ" was created by adding a circumflex to an ordinary "H". It first appeared as part of the alphabet of the international language Esperanto, with the publication of the Unua Libro on 26 July 1887 marking the beginning of its wider usage. Like all other non-basic Latin letters in the Esperanto alphabet, it was inspired by Western Slavic Latin alphabets (e.g. Czech), but uses a circumflex instead of a caron — most likely to make the orthography appear more international (i.e. less Slavic) and more compatible with French typewriters, which were in general use at the time and had a dead key for the circumflex, allowing it to be typed over any character.

Reported end

⟨Ĥ⟩ was always the least frequent letter in Esperanto orthography, occurring mostly in words with Greek etymologies, where it represented a Romanized chi (in fact its name in the Kalocsay abecedary, ĥi, was most likely inspired by this usage). Since chi is pronounced in most languages, neologistic equivalents soon appeared in which ⟨ĥ⟩ was replaced by ⟨k⟩, such as teĥniko → tekniko ("technology") and ĥemio → kemio ("chemistry"). Such changes were probably due to the 'k' sound being easier to pronounce by most European speakers, and the resulting word sounding more similar to the native equivalent. Some other replacements followed different patterns, such as ĥino → ĉino ("Chinese [person]").

These additions and replacements came very early and were in general use by World War I. Since then, the end of ⟨ĥ⟩ has been often discussed, but has never really happened. In modern times (post-World War II), no new coinages intended to replace words with ⟨ĥ⟩ in them have seen general use, with the notable of exception of koruso for ĥoro ("chorus"). Some words originally containing a ⟨ĥ⟩ are preferred to existing replacements (old or new), such as ĥaoso vs. kaoso ("chaos").

Several words commonly use ⟨ĥ⟩, particularly those not derived from Greek words (ĥano ("khan"), ĥoto ("jota"), Liĥtenŝtejno ("Liechtenstein"), etc.) or those in which there is another word that uses "k" in that context. The latter include:

• eĥo ("echo") ≠ eko ("beginning")
• ĉeĥo ("Czech") ≠ ĉeko ("bank check")
• ĥoro ("chorus") ≠ koro ("heart") ≠ horo ("hour")

Other uses

• A 'Ĥ' was used in the stage name of the 1980s Italo disco singer CĤATO.
• In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a system is typically denoted by ${\displaystyle {\hat {H}}}$ (where the hat indicates that it is an operator), especially in the Wheeler–DeWitt equation.

Computing codes

See also

• Ĉ, Ĝ, Ĵ, Ŝ, Ŭ – the other non-basic Latin letters of the Esperanto alphabet
• Ħ

Notes

1. Although 'Ĥ' usually has more dictionary entries than the letter 'Ĵ', ⟨ĵ⟩ is part of the common -aĵo suffix, which is why it occurs more frequently.

References

1. Lang, George (2009). Making Wawa: The Genesis of Chinook Jargon. UBC Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-0774815277.
2. "Unua Libro en Esperanto (First Book in Esperanto) - National Geographic Society". nationalgeographic.org. 2017-10-20. Archived from the original on 2017-10-20. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
3. "Chato – No No No". Discogs. Although the circumflex isn't in the text of the webpage, it is used in his stage name as shown on the record jacket: CĤATO.

This Esperanto-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• Letters with circumflex
• Esperanto letters with diacritics
• Latin letters with diacritics
• Esperanto stubs