THE LETTER H OF THE ALPHABET. This letter corresponds to Semitic (cheth), Greek B H (eta) . In the eastern Greek alphabet the form with three horizontal bars was in use, but in the Chalcidic the more usual form was H. This form was taken over by the Latins. The Etruscan forms are E and H. In the Umbrian alphabet there was a round form CD. The modern majuscule H is derived directly from the Latin.
The cursive Latin form resembled the modern minuscule, and the uncial form was 1). Both these forms result from writing the letter without taking pen from paper, the right-hand vertical bar being thus fore-shortened and the horizontal stroke rounded.
From these came the Carolingian k and the modern minuscule h.
In the eastern Greek alphabet the letter, which in Semitic as well presumably as in the parent alphabet of both Etruscan and Greek, represented an aspirate, was employed for the long open e, while in the western it retained its character as an aspirate, standing for the Greek rough breathing, a far weaker sound than the Semitic aspirate. In the early Greek inscriptions from the island of Thera it is used in both capacities. Its employment as a vowel is in conformity with the Greek habit of using letters of the Semitic alphabet which to them were superfluous to express their vowels which were not written in Semitic. The Greeks probably derived this arrangement from Asia Minor, and they carried it further. The letter passed from the Chalcidic into the Latin with the force of the aspirate, which it still retains. In the Romance languages the sound has disappeared, but the letter remains. (B. F. C. A.) In music in the German nomenclature, H stands for B natural, while the letter B is used for B flat. This confusing arrangement dates back to earlier centuries when, to get the semitone in the right place (between the 3rd and 4th notes) in the hexachord beginning on F, a new B, half a tone lower than the normal B, was introduced. This lowered B was called B molle (soft) and indicated by a rounded B (B rotundum) to distinguish it from the square sign of the natural B (B quadratum). B rotundum was later adopted as a general sign in the form of a flat (b) to indicate the lowering of a note by a semitone, while B quadratum became the sign, in the form of a natural (0), for a note not so lowered; and in this way, from the resemblance of the latter sign to an H, this letter came to be adopted in Germany for the natural or unlowered, B. In other words H is here really an erroneous and misleading form of what was originally a square-shaped B.