Gol he

Gol he written thrice (showing the non-isolated forms)

Gol he anddo-cas͟hmī hein comparison (word-final and word-medial positions)

Gol he,also calledchoṭī he,is one of the two variants of theArabicletter he/hāʾ(ه) that are in use in theUrdu Alpha bet,the other variant being thedo-cas͟hmī he(ھ), also calledhā-'e-mak͟hlūt.The letter is named for its shape in the isolated form,golmeaning "round" inHindustani,to distinguish it from thedo-cas͟hmī he,which is really a calligraphic variant of the "two-eyed" regular he in the medial position (ﻬ‎). Its various non-isolated forms originated in theNastaʿlīqscript orcalligraphic hand,though various zigzag (medial) and hook (final) forms of hāʾ have existed before the script was developed.

Use in Urdu

The letterہ‎ (encoded at U+06C1) replaces the regularheه‎ (encoded at U+0647) inUrdu(as well as thePunjabiShahmukhi Alpha bet) for thevoiced glottal fricative[ɦ]but is usually pronounced[ɑː]in the word-final position (exception include certain two-letter words such asوہ/ʋoː/orکہ/keː/) while thedo-cas͟hmī heھ‎ is used in digraphs foraspirationandbreathy voiceand hence never used word-initially.

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskhglyph form: (Help)	ہ‎	ـہ‎	ـہـ‎	ہـ‎
Nastaʿlīqglyph form:	ہ	ــــہ	ــــہــــ	ہــــ

For comparison, thedo-cas͟hmī he(not used word-initially) and the regular Arabic letter:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskhglyph form: (Help)	ھ‎	ـھ‎	ـھـ‎	ھـ‎
Nastaʿlīqglyph form:	ھ	ــــھ	ــــھــــ	ھــــ

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Naskhglyph form: (Help)	ه‎	ـه‎	ـهـ‎	هـ‎
Nastaʿlīqglyph form:	ه	ــــه	ــــهــــ	هــــ

See also

• Nastaʿlīq script