Simonides of Ceos
The letter Η had been adopted by Greek from the Phoenician letter Heth () originally with this consonantal sound value, and "Hēta" was its original name. The Italic alphabets, and ultimately Latin, adopted the letter H from this Greek usage. However, Greek dialects progressively lost the sound from their phonological systems. In the Ionic dialects, where this loss of happened early, the name of the letter naturally changed to "Ēta", and the letter was subsequently turned from a consonant to a new use as a vowel, denoting the long half-open sound. In this function it later entered the classical orthography adopted across the whole of Greece. According to traditional accounts, the new vowel, "Ēta", was originally the innovation of the poet Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC).