ي (yāʾ) is the last of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Its sound is y, as in yes, or a long i. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ي ي ي ي. It is a moon letter, and its abjad value is 10.
Hear its name, ياء (yāʾ):
Yāʾ in all four positions
Yāʾ joins to the letter before it and to the letter after it, so its shape depends on where it sits in a word. Alone it is ي. At the start of a word it is ي, in the middle ي, and at the end ي.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ي | U+FEF1 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ي | U+FEF3 | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ي | U+FEF4 | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ي | U+FEF2 | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+064A (ARABIC LETTER YEH); the codes in the table, U+FEF1 to U+FEF4, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Yāʾ is number 3 of the 28 letters by frequency, 7.8% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is initial in 31%, medial in 39%, final in 23% and alone in 6% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce yāʾ
The sound of yāʾ is y, as in yes, or a long i, written y / ī in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. Yāʾ also writes a long vowel, so it has two sounds, and the words below use both.
Arabic words with yāʾ
These 5 everyday words show yāʾ in real writing: it is initial in يد, يوم and لذيذ; medial in بيت; final in كرسي. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from other letters' worksheets, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Yāʾ here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| يد | yad | hand | initial | |
| بيت | bayt | house | medial | |
| كرسي | kursī | chair | final | |
| يوم | yawm | day | initial | |
| لذيذ | ladhīdh | delicious | initial |
Yāʾ with al-, and its number
Yāʾ is a moon letter, so the l of al- (the) is pronounced before it: اليد is al-yad, the hand (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 10 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like yāʾ
At the start and in the middle of a word, yāʾ, ب bāʾ, ت tāʾ, ث thāʾ and ن nūn share the same tooth, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ي yāʾ: two dots below
- ب bāʾ: one dot below
- ت tāʾ: two dots above
- ث thāʾ: three dots above
- ن nūn: one dot above
Yāʾ does two jobs: the y of يد (yad, hand), and after an i the long ī of كرسي (kursī, chair). At the end of a word, keep it apart from alif maqṣūra ى, which has no dots and sounds like a long a.
Practise writing yāʾ
Trace it on the free yāʾ tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 64 KB), which prints its four shapes beside يد (yad), بيت (bayt) and كرسي (kursī); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with yāʾ: what yalla means, Jasmine in Arabic and James in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter yāʾ?
The sound of yāʾ (ي) is y, as in yes, or a long i, written y / ī in transliteration.
Does yāʾ join to the next letter?
Yes. Yāʾ joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ي alone, ي at the start of a word, ي in the middle and ي at the end.
Is yāʾ a sun letter or a moon letter?
A moon letter. Before yāʾ the l of al- is pronounced, so اليد is al-yad (the hand).
Which Arabic letters look like yāʾ?
ي yāʾ has two dots below, ب bāʾ has one dot below, ت tāʾ has two dots above, ث thāʾ has three dots above and ن nūn has one dot above. At the start and in the middle of a word they share one shape and differ only in their dots.