Modifier Letter Small H With Stroke

It marks a light or secondary h-bar effect in phonetic transcription.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system for writing speech sounds. Its letter ħ represents a voiceless friction sound made deep in the throat. The raised 𐞕 modifies that sound: it can mark a very light occurrence or add h-bar friction as a secondary part of a neighboring consonant. The surrounding notation tells you which.

A 2004 proposal said no attested modifier for small h with stroke had been found; a 2005 study of Amis included printed examples. A 2020 Unicode request describes a very light final h-bar in Arabic acquisition at around 12 months and contrasts from a Mexican Spanish atlas. Unicode encoded the character in 2021; that is the encoding date, not the start of the notation.

What changes when 𐞕 moves?

Placement shows which articulation carries the main sound.

In the Mexican Spanish examples, 𐞕s keeps s primary and adds h-bar friction; ħˢ makes ħ primary and s secondary. Likewise, x𐞕 keeps x primary, while ħˣ makes ħ primary and x secondary. Here x is the IPA symbol for a voiceless velar fricative, a rough sound made at the soft palate.

The sequences assign different roles to their sounds. Read the neighbors as well as the raised mark.

Is 𐞕 the same as ħ or ʰ?

No. ħ is full-size; 𐞕 is its raised modifier.

The baseline letter ħ can represent the main h-bar sound; 𐞕 is raised and functions as a modifier. ʰ is an unbarred raised h, commonly used for aspiration—the puff of breath after a consonant. ɦ is a separate hooked IPA letter for a voiced, breathy sound made at the vocal-fold opening. Substituting one changes the transcription.