Yā '
connected shapes | ||
ـي
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ـيـ
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يـ
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from the right | both sides | to the left |
Yā ' ( Arabic ياء, DMG Yāʾ ) is the 28th letter of the Arabic alphabet . It emerged from the Phoenician iodine and is thus related to the Latin I (and thus also J ), the Greek Iota and the Hebrew iodine . The numerical value 10 is assigned to it.
Sound value and transcription
associated forms with Hamza |
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ـئ
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ـئـ
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ئـ
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to the right | both sides | to the left |
The Ya is one of the two semiconsonants in Arabic. Depending on the word, it stands for a consonant or serves to lengthen the vowel.
- As a consonant, the Ya corresponds to the J in "Julius" and the "Y" in "Yacht". It is reproduced with a “y” in the DMG inscription;
- As a sign for the vowel elongation, Ya stands for the closed (= "long") I as in "Ida", as an elongation of the short i ( Kasra ). It is then reproduced in the DMG romanization as "i" with a line above it (ī).
Furthermore, Ya can serve as a carrier vowel for the Hamza , but is written without diacritical points.
Spelling
In some Arab countries the diacritical points of the ya are often omitted. However, this can lead to confusion with the Alif maqsura .
In Persian and many writing systems derived from the Persian variant of the Arabic alphabet, Ya is regularly written without dots (ی). Among other things, in the Uighur alphabet and in the Pashtun script , these two variants differ aloud. In addition, some Arabic alphabets have other variants of the Ya.
Ya in unicode
Unicode codepoint | U + 064A |
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Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER YEH |
HTML |
ي
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ISO 8859-6 | 0xea |
If Ya should always be written without periods at the end, use the following code:
Unicode codepoint | U + 06CC |
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Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER PERSIAN YEH |
HTML |
ی
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ISO 8859-6 | unavailable |