JM: Summing up, the
letter H in Russian was borrowed from the Greek as an indicator for how an
initial E should be pronounced
It wasn't. As you may know, the Glagolitic
alphabet (the Cyrillic's prototype) was devised by brothers Cyril and Methodius
who lived in the 9th century and were Greek missionaries of Christianity among
the Slavic people. The letters ex, wye, zed and some other are missing in
it. There are other letters instead. Some Cyrillic letters look exactly like
Latin ones but are pronounced differently. Cyrillic H (nash of the
old Russian alphabet) actually corresponds to Latin N (which looks like mirrored
И, the Cyrillic counterpart of I), and Cyrillic X (kher), to Latin
H (your wretched "aitch"). According to the poet Trediakovski, there should be
two G letters in Russian alphabet: ga and glagol'
("gallows;" Rusian letter Г indeed looks like gallows and was called thus
in the old alphabet). Lomonosov, who didn't subscribe to the
idea, wrote a poem about it: скажите, где быть га и где стоять
глаголю.
az, slovo