H, the German Kurrent letter h
H is the 8th letter of the German alphabet. In cursive the lowercase h carries a long descending loop below the baseline, which makes it read as a modern y or a Cyrillic у to almost everyone who meets it for the first time.
In words
Schwester · sister
Haus · house
herzlich · warmly
Easy to confuse with
Most likely misread as
Kurrent h ≠ modern y
The Kurrent h begins with a tall ascender before it descends — the stroke spans both zones. A y has no ascender at all.
History
The letter H occupies the 8th position in the German alphabet. Phonetically, it represents a voiceless glottal fricative /h/ in syllable onsets, and serves as a silent lengthening marker (Dehnungs-h) after vowels in words like 'Sohn' or 'Jahr'.
Lowercase h in Kurrent is a three-zone letter that combines a tall ascender loop, a straight descent through the middle zone, a descending loop or stroke beneath the baseline, and an upward arch connecting to the next character. Untrained eyes often confuse it with long s (ſ) or f. Capital H is built from two tall vertical stems linked by an intricate central knot or figure-eight loop.
In historical German manuscripts, h is pervasive both as an initial consonant ('Haus', 'Hof', 'Herr') and as a lengthening marker. In older orthography prior to the 1901 spelling reform, h was also written after t ('Thür', 'That', 'Theil'), making it a frequent dating indicator in archival texts.