The pronunciation of the letter Heth (ח) is difficult for most Jewish communities. Therefore, there is disagreement, and they pronounce it in three different ways. There are those who pronounce it the same as the letter He (ה H in English)*, there are those who pronounce it like a soft Khaf (כ خ), and there are those who pronounce it as the Mizrahi Heth (ح). It’s very obvious that its pronunciation cannot be the same as the soft Khaf (כ) or the same as the letter He (ה) because the Holy Tongue doesn’t have two identical letters. There is no doubt that its true pronunciation is as the Jews of Arab lands say it. It is identical to the Arabic ح and not like the soft Khaf (כ).
It is known that the reading of the Heth (ח) as a כ is a late perversion even among the Ashkenazim. Previously, the Ashkenazim pronounced it the same as the He (ה). We find Rabbi Yosef Ometz Ashkanezi (late 16th century Germany) writing (letter 21) that the Jewish inhabitants of Poland, who pronounce the Heth (ח) like a Khaf (כ) invented this practice out of thin air. Therefore, by his reckoning, the correct pronunciation of the Heth (ח) should be like the He (ה) as the Jews of Germany pronounced it. However, we know that pronouncing it exactly the same as the He (ה) is also not valid. The sages of the Talmud said that anybody who pronounces the Heth (ח) like a He (ה) cannot read publicly from the Torah and cannot perform the Priestly blessings. This opinion was codified into Jewish law. If so, it’s clear that the Heth (ח) is not the same as the He (ה), and it’s also not the same as the soft Khaf (כ). The first Ashkenazim themselves were pronouncing it the same as a He (ה) . From where did their current habit of pronouncing it as a Khaf (כ) come from? It must have come about from the East under the influence of the languages that were spoken there.
In my book “Sefath Emeth I proved this at length. I shall explain it briefly here. I already mentioned above, in several places, that Rav Sa’adya Gaon (10th century Egypt) and his contemporary, Rav Dunash ben Tamim, counted twenty-nine separate letters in Hebrew, and they wrote that we have three letters that Arabic lacks. They wrote that Arabic has that we lack. They did not include, in these lists, the letter Heth (ח). From this it’s implied that our letter Heth (ח) is identical to the Arabic equivalent.
Similarly, all the Geonim and early rabbis, who wrote hundreds of books in Arabic using Hebrew script, consistently used our letter Heth (ח) to represent the Arabic equivalent (ح). This implies that they are identical. Conversely, they never used the letter Heth (ח) to represent the letter Kha (خ) in Arabic; they only used the soft Khaf (כ). This is clear proof that the Hebrew letter Heth (ח) is the same as the Arabic letter Ha (ح), and it is not the same as Hebrew Khaf (כ) at all.
*I have personally heard Indian Jews (from Cochin, South India) reading the Heth (ח) exactly the same as the letter He (H in English). I’m certain that many new converts to Islam, and Indian/Indonesian Muslims pronounce Arabic ح the same way, since they’re unable to produce this uniquely Semitic sound.
