Tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets
Yodh
(also spelled
jodh
,
yod
, or
jod
) is the tenth
letter
of the Semitic
abjads
, including
Phoenician
y?d
??,
Hebrew
yud
?,
Aramaic
yod
??,
Syriac
y??
?, and
Arabic
y??
?. Its sound value is
/
j
/
in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a
long vowel
, representing
/
iː
/
.
[
citation needed
]
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek
Iota
(Ι),
[1]
Latin
I
and
J
,
Cyrillic
?
,
Coptic
iauda
(?) and
Gothic
eis
.
The term
yod
is often used to refer to the speech sound
[
j
]
, a
palatal approximant
, even in discussions of languages not written in Semitic abjads, as in phonological phenomena such as English "
yod-dropping
".
Origins
[
edit
]
Yod originated from a
hieroglyphic
"hand", or
*yad
.
Arabic y??
[
edit
]
The letter
?
is named
y??
(
????
). It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:
Position in word
|
Isolated
|
Final
|
Medial
|
Initial
|
Glyph form:
(
Help
)
|
?
|
??
|
???
|
??
|
It is pronounced in four ways:
- As a consonant, it is pronounced as a
palatal approximant
/j/
, typically at the beginnings of words in front of short or long vowels.
- A
long
/iː/
usually in the middle or end of words. In this case it has no diacritic, but could be marked with a
kasra
in the preceding letter in some traditions.
- A
long
/eː/
In many
dialects
, as a result of the
monophthongization
that the diphthong
/aj/
underwent in most words.
- A part of a
diphthong
,
/aj/
. Then, it has no diacritic but could be marked with a sukun in some traditions. The preceding consonant could have no diacritic or have
fat?a
sign, hinting to the first vowel in the diphthong, i.e.
/a/
.
As a vowel, y?? can serve as the "seat" of the
hamza
:
?
Y?? serves several functions in the Arabic language. Y?? as a prefix is the marker for a singular
imperfective
verb, as in
???????
yaktub
"he writes" from the root
?-?-?
K-T-B ("write, writing"). Y?? with a
shadda
is particularly used to turn a noun into an adjective, called a
nisbah
(
???????
). For instance,
?????
Mi?r
(
Egypt
) →
????????
Mi?riyy
(Egyptian). The transformation can be more abstract; for instance,
????????
maw???
(matter, object) →
???????????
maw???iyy
(
objective
). Still other uses of this function can be a bit further from the root:
??????????
ishtir?k
(cooperation) →
?????????????
ishtir?kiyy
(
socialist
). The common pronunciation of the final
/-ijj/
is most often pronounced as
[i]
or
[iː]
.
A form similar to but distinguished from y?? is the
?alif maq??rah
(
????? ??????????
) "limited/restricted
alif
", with the form
?
. It indicates a final long
/aː/
.
Alif maq??rah
[
edit
]
Perso-Arabic ye
[
edit
]
In the
Persian alphabet
, the letter is generally called
ye
following
Persian-language
custom. In its final form, the letter does not have dots (
?
), much like the Arabic
Alif maq??rah
or, more to the point, much like the custom in Egypt, Sudan and sometimes Maghreb. On account of this difference, Perso-Arabic
ye
is located at a different
Unicode
code point
than both of the standard Arabic letters. In computers, the Persian version of the letter automatically appears with two dots initially and medially: (
?? ??? ??
).
Position in word:
|
Isolated
|
Final
|
Medial
|
Initial
|
Naskh
glyph form:
(
Help
)
|
?
|
??
|
???
|
??
|
Nasta?l?q
glyph form:
|
?
|
?????
|
?????????
|
?????
|
In
Kashmiri
, it uses a ring instead of dots below (?) (
? ?? ??? ??
).
Position in word
|
Isolated
|
Final
|
Medial
|
Initial
|
Glyph form:
(
Help
)
|
?
|
??
|
???
|
??
|
Returned y??
[
edit
]
In different calligraphic styles like the
Hijazi script
,
Kufic
, and
Nasta?l?q script
, a final
y??
might have a particular shape with the descender turned to the right (
??
), called
al-y?? al-mard?dah/al-r?ji?ah
("returned, recurred
y??
"),
[2]
either with two dots or without them.
[3]
In
Urdu
this is called
ba?? ye
("big ye"), but is an independent letter used for /?ː, eː/ and differs from the basic ye (
cho?? ye
, "little ye"). For this reason the letter has its own
code point
in Unicode. Nevertheless, its initial and medial forms are not different from the other
ye
(practically
ba?? ye
is not used in these positions).
Position in word:
|
Isolated
|
Final
|
Medial
|
Initial
|
Naskh
glyph form:
(
Help
)
|
?
|
??
|
??
|
?
|
Nasta?l?q
glyph form:
|
?
|
?????
|
?????
|
?
|
Hebrew yod
[
edit
]
Hebrew spelling:
????
;
[4]
[5]
colloquial
????
- The letter appears with or without a hook on different sans-serif fonts, for example
- Arial, DejaVu Sans, Arimo, Open Sans:
?
- Tahoma, Alef, Heebo:
?
Pronunciation
[
edit
]
In both
Biblical
and
Modern Hebrew
, Yod represents a
palatal approximant
(
[
j
]
). As a
mater lectionis
, it represents the vowel
[
i
]
. At the end of words with a vowel or when it is marked with a
sh'va nach
, it represents the formation of a
diphthong
, such as
/ei/
,
/ai/
, or
/oi/
.
Significance
[
edit
]
In
gematria
, Yod represents the number ten.
As a
prefix
, it designates the third person singular (or plural, with a
Vav
as a
suffix
) in the future tense.
As a
suffix
, it indicates first person singular possessive;
av
(father) becomes
avi
(my father).
"Yod" in
Hebrew
signifies
iodine
. Iodine is also called ???
yod
in Arabic.
In religion
[
edit
]
Two Yods in a row designate the name of God
Adonai
and in pointed texts are written with the vowels of Adonai, which is done as well with the
Tetragrammaton
.
As Yod is the smallest letter, much
kabbalistic
and mystical significance is attached to it. According to the
Gospel of Matthew
,
Jesus
mentioned it during the
Antithesis of the Law
, when he says: "One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Jot, or iota, refers to the letter Yod; it was often overlooked by scribes because of its size and position as a
mater lectionis
. In Modern Hebrew, the phrase "tip of the Yod" refers to a small and insignificant thing, and someone who "worries about the tip of a Yod" is someone who is picky and meticulous about small details.
Much
kabbalistic
and mystical significance is also attached to it because of its gematria value as ten, which is an important number in Judaism, and its place in the name of God.
[6]
Yiddish
[
edit
]
In
Yiddish
,
[7]
the letter yod is used for several orthographic purposes in native words:
- Alone, a single yod ? may represent the vowel
[
i
]
or the consonant
[
j
]
. When adjacent to another vowel, or another yod,
[
i
]
may be distinguished from
[
j
]
by the addition of a dot below. Thus the word
Yidish
'Yiddish' is spelled ??????. The first yod represents [
j
]; the second yod represents [
i
] and is distinguished from the adjacent [
j
] by a dot; the third yod represents [
i
] as well, but no dot is necessary.
- The
digraph
??, consisting of two yods, represents the diphthong [
ej
].
- A pair of yods with a horizontal line (
pasekh
) under them, ??, represents the diphthong [
aj
] in standard Yiddish.
- The digraph consisting of a
vov
followed by a yod, ??, represents the diphthong [
oj
].
In traditional as well as in
YIVO
orthography,
Loanwords
from Hebrew or Aramaic in Yiddish are spelled as they are in their language of origin. In Soviet orthography, they are written phonetically like other Yiddish words.
Character encodings
[
edit
]
Character information
Preview
|
י
|
ي
|
ی
|
ܝ
|
ࠉ
|
Unicode name
|
HEBREW LETTER YOD
|
ARABIC LETTER YEH
|
ARABIC LETTER FARSI YEH
|
SYRIAC LETTER YUDH
|
SAMARITAN LETTER YUT
|
Encodings
|
decimal
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
Unicode
|
1497
|
U+05D9
|
1610
|
U+064A
|
1740
|
U+06CC
|
1821
|
U+071D
|
2057
|
U+0809
|
UTF-8
|
215 153
|
D7 99
|
217 138
|
D9 8A
|
219 140
|
DB 8C
|
220 157
|
DC 9D
|
224 160 137
|
E0 A0 89
|
Numeric character reference
|
י
|
י
|
ي
|
ي
|
ی
|
ی
|
ܝ
|
ܝ
|
ࠉ
|
ࠉ
|
Character information
Preview
|
𐎊
|
𐡉
|
𐤉
|
Unicode name
|
UGARITIC LETTER YOD
|
IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER YODH
|
PHOENICIAN LETTER YOD
|
Encodings
|
decimal
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
dec
|
hex
|
Unicode
|
66442
|
U+1038A
|
67657
|
U+10849
|
67849
|
U+10909
|
UTF-8
|
240 144 142 138
|
F0 90 8E 8A
|
240 144 161 137
|
F0 90 A1 89
|
240 144 164 137
|
F0 90 A4 89
|
UTF-16
|
55296 57226
|
D800 DF8A
|
55298 56393
|
D802 DC49
|
55298 56585
|
D802 DD09
|
Numeric character reference
|
𐎊
|
𐎊
|
𐡉
|
𐡉
|
𐤉
|
𐤉
|
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Overviews
| |
---|
Eras
| |
---|
Reading traditions
| |
---|
Orthography
| |
---|
Phonology
| |
---|
Grammar
| |
---|
Academic
| |
---|
Reference works
| |
---|