Editing H-dropping (section)

==In other languages==
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2025}}
Processes of H-dropping have occurred in various languages at certain times, and in some cases, they remain as distinguishing features between dialects, as in English. Some [[Dutch dialects]], especially the southern ones, feature H-dropping. The dialects of [[Zeeland]], [[West Flanders|West]] and [[East Flanders]], most of [[Antwerp (province)|Antwerp]] and [[Flemish Brabant]], and the west of [[North Brabant]] have lost /h/ as a phonemic consonant but use [h] to avoid hiatus and to signal emphasis, much as in the H-dropping dialects of English.<ref>{{OED|h}}</ref> H-dropping is also found in some [[North Germanic languages]], for instance [[Elfdalian]] and the dialect of [[Roslagen]], where it is found already in [[Old Norse#Old East Norse|Old East Norse]]. Also the [[West Low German|Low Saxon]] speaking area around [[Zwolle]], [[Kampen, Overijssel|Kampen]], [[Steenwijk]], [[Meppel]] and [[Hoogeveen]] have h-dropping, the former island of [[Urk]] has it too as do some regions in [[Groningen]].

When dealing with Greek, this process is called [[psilosis]]. The phoneme {{IPA|/h/}} in [[Ancient Greek]] of [[Classical Athens]], occurring predominantly at the beginnings of words and originally written with the letter H and later as a rough breathing, had been lost by that period in most [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] dialects and from all Greek dialects during the late [[Hellenistic]]/Roman era. Hence it not a phoneme of [[Modern Greek]] being approximated in foreign loanwords by {{IPA|/x/}} or {{IPA|/ç/}} (or {{IPA|/∅/}}).

The phoneme {{IPA|/h/}} was lost in [[Vulgar Latin]], the ancestor of the modern [[Romance languages]]. Already in the Imperial period, there is attested evidence for early h-loss. [[French language|French]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and [[Romanian language|Romanian]] have acquired new initial {{IPA|/h/}} in medieval times, but they were later lost in the first two languages in a "second round" of H-dropping. Some dialects of Spanish have yet again acquired {{IPA|[h]}} from {{IPA|/x/}}, which as of now is stable.

It is hypothesized in the [[laryngeal theory]] that the loss of {{IPA|[h]}} or similar sounds played a role in the early development of the [[Indo-European languages]].

In [[Maltese language|Maltese]], {{IPA|/h/}} existed as a phoneme until the 19th century. It was then lost in most positions, sometimes lengthening the adjacent vowel. Chiefly word-finally it was merged with /{{IPAlink|ħ}}/. The latter phoneme, in turn, may now be pronounced {{IPA|[h]}} by some speakers, chiefly in the syllable onset.

[[Modern Hebrew]] is in the process of losing {{IPA|/h/}}; the phoneme is either replaced by {{IPA|/ʔ/}} (word-initially) or entirely absent (in all other positions) in the speech of contemporary young speakers.

In [[Tagalog language|Tagalog]], {{IPA|/h/}} is sometimes elided into an immediately succeeding vowel, such as "huwag" from /huˈwaɡ/ to /ˈwag/ and "sabihin" from /saˈbihin/ to /saˈbin/.

Many dialects of [[Persian language|Persian]] spoken in [[Afghanistan]] (i.e. [[Dari]]) do not realize the phoneme {{IPA|/h/}}, except in high-prestige literary words or in hyper formal speech. The deletion of the phoneme {{IPA|/h/}} may cause a preceding short vowel to be reinterpreted as a long vowel, likely due to phonological rules in Dari prohibiting short vowels and long vowels from being equal in length.<ref>Rees, Daniel A. "Towards Proto-Persian". Georgetown University 2008</ref> For example, <قهر> (qahr /qahɾ/, "anger") is often realized as ''qār'' /qɑːɾ/ (as if it was written like <قار>), and <فهمیدن> (fahmīdan /fahmiːdan/, to understand) is often realized as <فامیدن> (''fāmīdan'' /fɑːmiːdan/). Between vowels, the phoneme {{IPA|/h/}} may be replaced by a glide ({{IPA|/j/}} or {{IPA|/w/}}) resulting in words like <خواهش> (x(w)āhiš /xɑːhɪʃ/, "I want") being realized as <خایش> (''xāyš'' /xɑːjʃ/) or, in dialects that no longer distinguish āy and ay, this may be further reduced to ''xayš'' /xajʃ/ (as if spelt <خیش>).

The modern [[Javanese language]] typically does not have initial and intervocalic {{IPA|/h/}} in its native words, except between the same vowels. For instance, in modern Javanese, the word for "rain" is ''udan'', from Old Javanese ''hudan'', which ultimately comes from Proto-Austronesian ''*quzaN''. The letter "ꦲ" in traditional Javanese script, which had the value {{IPA|/ha/}} in Old Javanese is now used in most cases to represent {{IPA|/a/}} and {{IPA|/ɔ/}} in its base form. In modern Javanese, initial and intervocalic {{IPA|/h/}} appears only in loanwords from Indonesian and English. Since the Javanese people have been exposed to Dutch for far longer than they are with Indonesian or standard literary Malay (which only started somewhere after 1900 and amplified after 1945, excluding [[Surinamese Javanese]]), many of the words borrowed from Dutch have also lost the phoneme, such as ''andhuk'' /aɳˈɖ̥(ʰ)ʊʔ/ "towel" from Dutch ''handdoek''.