ה־

Determiner

 * 1) this

Etymology 1
Possibly akin to 🇨🇬 and ; Rubin posits a connection 🇨🇬; the final in  would've been assimilated to the first syllable of consonant-initial words; this form would then be generalised to vowel-initial words as well.

Compare 🇨🇬, the standardized Arabic definite article, which is of largely disputed etymology, and (definite ).

Article

 * 1)  The.
 * 2) This: the current or adjacent;
 * 1) This: the current or adjacent;

Usage notes

 * In traditional grammar, Hebrew common nouns have three “states”: indefinite (corresponding to English “a(n)/some __”), definite (corresponding to English “the __”), and construct (corresponding to English “a(n)/some/the __ of”). Therefore, the definite article was traditionally considered to be an actual part of the definite noun. In modern colloquial use, the definite article is often taken as a clitic, attaching to a noun but not actually part of it. For example, the Hebrew term for school is ; so in traditional grammar, “the school” is, but in modern colloquial speech, it is often.
 * is used not only with nouns, but also with attributive adjectives; that is, attributive adjectives agree in definiteness with the nouns they modify. This agreement is strictly semantic; an attributive adjective takes if its noun is semantically definite, even if the noun does not itself have, for example if it’s a proper noun.
 * When follows, , or , the two merge, with the consonant being , , or  and the vowel being that from the.
 * In traditional grammar, the consonant after receives a dagésh khazák (gemination), unless it’s one of the letters that cannot take a dagésh, in which case the vowel in the  changes:
 * If the consonant after the is  or, or if it’s  and its syllable is stressed, then a kamáts is used instead of a patákh; so,.
 * If the consonant after the is  and its syllable is unstressed, then a segól is used instead of a patákh; so,.
 * If the consonant after the is  or, then a patákh is used as usual, unless the  or  has unstressed kamáts or khatáf kamáts, in which case a segól is used instead.

Etymology 2
Compare 🇨🇬 (also its purported dialectal, and now obsoleted, variant, ) and 🇨🇬.

Usage notes

 * Before a sh'va this prefix has a patach.