Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth
letter of the Semitic
abjad
An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...
s, including
Phoenician Yōd
/𐤉,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
Yōd ,
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
Yod
,
Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a
long vowel, representing .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek Iota (Ι),
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
I and
J,
Cyrillic І,
Coptic (Ⲓ) and
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
eis
Eis or EIS may refer to:
Education
* Eastern Independent Schools of Melbourne, in Australia
* Educational Institute of Scotland, a trade union
* Ekamai International School, in Bangkok, Thailand
* English for Integrated Studies, a program in ...
.
The term yod is often used to refer to the speech sound , a
palatal approximant, even in discussions of languages not written in Semitic abjads, as in phonological phenomena such as English "
yod-dropping
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
".
Origins
Yod originated from a
hieroglyphic “hand”, or
*yad.
Hebrew Yod
Hebrew spelling:
; colloquial
;The letter appears with or without a hook on different sans-serif fonts, for example:
* Arial, DejaVu Sans, Arimo, Open Sans:
י
* Tahoma, Alef, Heebo:
י
Pronunciation
In both Biblical and modern
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, Yod represents a
palatal approximant (). As a
mater lectionis, it represents the vowel . At the end of words with a vowel or when marked with a
sh'va nach, it represents the formation of a
diphthong, such as , , or .
Significance
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 linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
) in the future tense.
As a
suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
, it indicates first person singular possessive; ''av'' (father) becomes ''avi'' (my father).
"Yod" in the Hebrew language signifies
iodine. Iodine is also called يود ''yod'' in Arabic.
In religion
Two Yods in a row designate the name of God
Adonai
Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot (" fHosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be").This is th ...
and in pointed texts are written with the vowels of Adonai; this 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
The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...
,
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
mentioned it during the
Antithesis of the Law
Matthew 5 is the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It contains the first portion of the Sermon on the Mount, the other portions of which are contained in chapters 6 and 7. Portions are similar to the Sermon on the P ...
, 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.
Yiddish
In
Yiddish, the letter yod is used for several orthographic purposes in native words:
* Alone, a single yod י may represent the vowel or the consonant . When adjacent to another vowel, or another yod, may be distinguished from by the addition of a dot below. Thus the word ''Yidish'' 'Yiddish' is spelled ייִדיש. The first yod represents []; the second yod represents [] and is distinguished from the adjacent [] by a dot; the third yod represents [] as well, but no dot is necessary.
* The digraph (orthography), digraph יי, consisting of two yods, represents the diphthong [].
* A pair of yods with a horizontal line (''patach, pasekh'') under them, ײַ, represents the diphthong [] in standard Yiddish.
* The digraph consisting of a Waw (letter), vov followed by a yod, וי, represents the diphthong [].
Loanwords from Hebrew or Aramaic in Yiddish are spelled as they are in their language of origin.
Arabic yāʼ
The letter is named ' (). It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:
It is pronounced in four ways:
* As a consonant, it is pronounced as a
palatal approximant , typically at the beginnings of words in front of short or long vowels.
*A
long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensu ...
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
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensu ...
In many
dialects, as a result of the
monophthongization that the diphthong underwent in most words.
* A part of a
diphthong, . Then, it has no diacritic but could be marked with a sukun in some traditions. The preceding consonant could have no diacritic or have sign, hinting to the first vowel in the diphthong, i.e. .
As a vowel, yāʾ can serve as the "seat" of the
hamza:
Yāʾ serves several functions in the Arabic language. Yāʾ as a prefix is the marker for a singular
imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...
verb, as in ' "he writes" from the root K-T-B ("write, writing"). Yāʾ with a
shadda is particularly used to turn a noun into an adjective, called a ''nisbah'' (). For instance, ' (
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
) → ''Miṣriyy'' (Egyptian). The transformation can be more abstract; for instance, ''mawḍūʿ'' (matter, object) → ''mawḍūʿiyy'' (
objective). Still other uses of this function can be a bit further from the root: ''ishtirāk'' (cooperation) → ''ishtirākiyy'' (
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
). The common pronunciation of the final is most often pronounced as or .
A form similar to but distinguished from yāʾ is the ' () "limited/restricted
alif", with the form . It indicates a final long .
In Egypt, Sudan and sometimes the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
, the final form is always (without dots), both in handwriting and in print, representing both final and . representing final (
DIN 31635 DIN 31635 is a Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG) as modified by the International Orientalist ...
transliteration: ) is less likely to occur in Modern Standard Arabic. In this case, it is commonly known as, especially in Egypt, ' . In Egypt, it is always short if used in
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic, locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( ar, العامية المصرية, ), or simply Masri (also Masry) (), is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic dialect in Egypt. It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family, and ...
and most commonly short in Modern Standard Arabic, as well.
Alif maqṣūrah
The ' (, 'limited/restricted alif'), commonly known in Egypt as ' (, 'flexible alif'), looks like a dotless
(final
) and may appear only at the end of a word. Although it looks different from a regular ''alif'', it represents the same sound , often realized as a short vowel. When it is written, ' is indistinguishable from final
Persian ''
ye'' or Arabic ' as it is written in Egypt, Sudan and sometimes elsewhere. The letter is transliterated as in
Kazakh representing the vowel /
ə/. ' is transliterated as in
ALA-LC, in
DIN 31635 DIN 31635 is a Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard for the transliteration of the Arabic alphabet adopted in 1982. It is based on the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG) as modified by the International Orientalist ...
, in ISO 233-2, and in
ISO 233.
In Arabic, ''alif maqsurah'' is not used initially or medially, and it is not joinable initially or medially in all fonts. However, the letter is used initially and medially in the
Uyghur Arabic alphabet and the Arabic-based
Kyrgyz alphabet
The Kyrgyz alphabets ( ky, Кыргыз алфавити, translit=Kyrgyz alfaviti, , Yañalif: ''Qьrƣьz alfaviti'', ) are the alphabets used to write the Kyrgyz language. The Kyrgyz language uses the following alphabets:
*The Cyrillic script ...
, representing the vowel /
ɯ/: (
).
Perso-Arabic ye
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 ' 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
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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: (
).
In
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
, it uses a ring instead of dots below (ؠ) (
).
Returned yāʾ
In different calligraphic styles like the
Hijazi script,
Kufic, and
Nastaʿlīq script, a final ''yāʾ'' might have a particular shape with the descender turned to the right (), called ("returned, recurred ''yāʾ''"), either with two dots or without them.
In
this is called ''
baṛī ye'' ("big ye"), but is an independent letter used for /ɛː, eː/ and differs from the basic ye (''choṭī 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 ''baṛī ye'' is not used in these positions).
Character encodings
References
External links
{{Northwest Semitic abjad
Phoenician alphabet
Hebrew letters
Vowel letters