Aspirated h

In French spelling, aspirated "h" (French: "h" aspiré) is an initial silent letter “h” that represents a hiatus at a word boundary, in this case between the word in question's first vowel and the preceding word’s last vowel. At the same time, the aspirated “h” blocks the normally expected processes of contraction and liaison from occurring. The name of this now silent “h” refers not to aspiration but to its former pronunciation as the voiceless glottal fricative [h] in Old French and in Middle French.