Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fifth letter of the phoenician and hebrew alphabets”. Today it says “fifth letter of the semitic abjads”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005
He is the fifth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets .1The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon , the Latin E and the Cyrillic Ye .2 He, like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds. In modern Hebrew it makes a sound similar to the English letter H. v t e v t e3
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17428707.
The opening as it stood in 2010 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets , including Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew ה , Syriac ܗ and Arabic hāʾ ه .Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ( [h] ).The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon , Etruscan 𐌄, Latin E and Cyrillic Ye . He, like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 364787905.
The opening as it stood in 2015 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician Hē , Hebrew Hē ה , Aramaic Hē , Syriac Hē ܗ , and Arabic Hāʾ ﻫ . Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ( [h] ). The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon , Etruscan 𐌄, Latin E , Ë and Ɛ , and Cyrillic Е , Ё , Є and Э . He , like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 662646448.
The opening as it stood in 2020
He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician Hē , Hebrew Hē , Aramaic Hē , Syriac Hē ܗ , and Arabic Hāʾ ه . Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ( [h] ). The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon , Etruscan 𐌄, Latin E , Ë and Ɛ , and Cyrillic Е , Ё , Є and Э . He , like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 959478279.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets For the Japanese letter, see He (kana) . He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician hē 𐤄, Hebrew hē ה, Aramaic hē 𐡄, Syriac hē ܗ, and Arabic hāʾ ه. Its sound value is the voiceless glottal fricative ( [h] ). The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon Ε ε, Etruscan 𐌄, Latin E , Ë and Ɛ , and Cyrillic Е , Ё , Є , Э , and Ҩ . He , like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1177909877.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets For the English pronoun, see he (pronoun) . He is the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician hē 𐤄, Hebrew hē ה , Aramaic hē 𐡄, Syriac hē ܗ, and Arabic hāʾ ه . It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪀, South Arabian 𐩠 , and Ge'ez ሀ . Its sound value is the voiceless glottal fricative ( [h] ). The proto-Canaanite letter gave rise to the Greek Epsilon Ε ε, Etruscan 𐌄, Latin E , Ë and Ɛ , and Cyrillic Е , Ё , Є , Э , and Ҩ . He , like all Phoenician letters, represented a consonant , but the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic equivalents have all come to represent vowel sounds.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1298126823. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fifth letter of the phoenician and hebrew alphabets”. Today it says “fifth letter of the semitic abjads”. Read the current article and compare.
2005
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
fifth letter of the phoenician and hebrew alphabets
Now
fifth letter of the semitic abjads
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
