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In most dialects of Spanish, "h" is a silent letter (except when appearing in the digraph "ch" or loanwords e.g. hámster). Indeed the RAE notes that in standard Spanish it is silent.

But this letter was pronounced in Old Spanish, and it is from these sounds we inherit the modern orthography. Do any dialects of Spanish maintain this sound?

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  • It is still pronounced in some southamerican countries, in some words, e.g. Colombia
    – Iria
    Commented Jan 16, 2020 at 13:55
  • Quite related to spanish.stackexchange.com/q/16619/768.
    – c.p.
    Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 0:09

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Word-initial [h-] in Spanish was gradually lost in most peninsular dialects by the late Middle Ages, but this sound change was not universal, and this sound is still present in colloquial Andalusian, Extremaduran, and Canarian dialects today:4 5 6

The loss of [h-] did not spread everywhere, of course, since it was a relatively late innovation. Nebrija, for example, at the end of the fifteenth century, described [h] as a regular part of the phonemic inventory of Spanish. Today [h-] is still found in popular speech in Extremadura, Huelva, Sevilla, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga and the western portions of Granada and Almeria (Penny 1972-3, 470), as well as in many parts of Spanish America.

As well as in various cosmopolitan dialects descended from colonisers from the above regions (e.g. Mexico1, the Philippines2, Equatorial Guinea3).

This aspiration has even lead its way into the orthography of some regionalisms, replacing "h-" with "j-":

Esta aspiración aún se conserva como rasgo dialectal en Andalucía, Extremadura, Canarias y otras zonas de España y América. A veces, la aspiración llega casi a convertirse en el sonido velar fricativo sordo /j/, pronunciación que en algún caso tiene reflejo en la escritura; así ha ocurrido, por ejemplo, con el adjetivo jondo (‘hondo’, del lat. fundus), que se aplica al cante más genuinamente andaluz, caracterizado por su profundo sentimiento, o con el verbo jalar, variante de halar usada en varios países americanos, o con jolgorio, grafía hoy mayoritaria frente a la etimológica holgorio.

1. A Panorama of Traditional New Mexican Spanish (p.8-9)
2. A History of the Spanish Language (1.5.4 The Philippines)
3. "Cuba Africana" (1858-1898), transferencias lingüísticas afrocubanas (p.46)

4. Variation and Change in Spanish (4.1.7.2.3 Maintanence and loss of /h/, p.121-122)
5. Andalusian Spanish (2.3 Retention of [h] < Latin f)
6. DPD: h (2.)

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  • So the majority of Spanish speakers in Spain won't pronounce the "h" in (say) "hablar," right? And also the majority in South America? Pronouncing it is acceptable, but unusual, right? I'm asking because when I was learning Spanish in California, we were taught the unambiguous rule that h is silent (in non-adopted words), and when I was travelling in Spain ~25 years ago, I don't recall hearing it pronounced, but my son is now learning Spanish at a school in England and he swears they pronounce it. When he says hablar, it drives me nuts. :-) TIA.
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Apr 21, 2020 at 8:31
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    @T.J.Crowder yeah - it's a rare phenomenon in modern Spanish - globally the vast majority of speakers do not pronounce it, and in the dialects where it is pronounced it's stigmatised somewhat, I wouldn't recommend people learning Spanish emulate this - it would be something akin to someone learning English and purposefully th-fronting.
    – jacobo
    Commented Apr 21, 2020 at 10:17
  • Hey! Be nice to us cockneys! ;-) (Okay, technically I was probably born a mile or two too far away for the bells of Bow Church to actually be audible, and in any case thanks to my parents and upbringing I have a mostly American accent, but...) Thanks!!
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Apr 21, 2020 at 10:33
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You should consider two points about the 'silent sound' of the letter "h":

  1. En las palabras que contienen los diptongos /ua/, /ue/, /ui/ en posición inicial o en posición interior a comienzo de sílaba, y que se escriben con h antepuesta (hua-, hue-, hui-), se suele pronunciar ante el diptongo un leve sonido consonántico cercano a una /g/: [guéso, guébo, pariguéla, desguesár] por hueso, huevo, parihuela, deshuesar. (...) así, algunas palabras que comienzan por hua-, hue- o hui- pueden escribirse también con gua-, güe- y güi-, como huaca, huemul o huipil, escritas también guaca, güemul, güipil.

  2. El grupo hi en posición inicial de palabra seguido de una e tónica se pronuncia normalmente como el sonido palatal sonoro /y/ (→ y1, 2a), salvo detrás de pausa o de palabra que termina en vocal, en que la pronunciación oscila entre [ié] y [yé]; así, es normal que palabras como hierro, hielo, hierba, hiedra se pronuncien [yérro, yélo, yérba, yédra]. También esta pronunciación se ha fijado en algún caso en la escritura, como ha ocurrido en hiedra y hierba, y en algunos derivados de esta última, que pueden escribirse también yedra, yerba, yerbajo, etc. En el Río de la Plata, las formas hierba y yerba no son simples variantes gráficas, sino que denotan cosas distintas: mientras que hierba designa cualquier planta pequeña de tallo tierno, yerba designa solo la que se emplea para preparar el mate.

At least in America this is the common way.

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In some zones of Andalucía, or some social strata from there, pronounce an aspirated h, like the h in the English word hello, actually once I heard a Spanish singer from Andalucía saying

"... esto me ha gustao una hartá ..."

aspirating the h of "hartá".

You can read about particularities of Andalucian Spanish here:

2.4 Un rasgo arcaizante: La aspiración de la H- inicial procedente de F- latina
(humo = jumo, hierro = jierro)

En Andalucía se mantienen restos minoritarios de la aspiración de H- procedente de F- latina. Este rasgo arcaizante está presente en todo el occidente de la Península, en una franja que va desde Asturias a Extremadura, y también en Hispanoamérica, reducido ya a las áreas rurales y a los hablantes poco instruidos.

Tanto dentro como fuera de Andalucía, la aspiración de la h- inicial se da en hablantes de más edad y de nivel sociocultural bajo. Ha desaparecido prácticamente en los jóvenes de cualquier nivel. Se utiliza hoy a veces en situaciones de habla en que predomina la intención expresiva (una jartá de cosas, jartito me tienes), y ha llegado a fijarse en ciertas palabras que han generalizado en todo el español su forma de origen andaluz (juerga, de huelga, o cante jondo).

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In Mexico there is people that pronounce the h as an aspirated j. Words like hedor (jedor), hoyo (joyo), hondo (jondo), honda (jonda) are examples of this.

Also, in cases like h before i or before some diphthongs, it is commonly pronounced (in Mexico) as y or g as explained in this answer

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