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This letter is called a yaa# ياء. It sometimes
sounds like the "y" in "yeah", "yiddish", or "you", and
sometimes like "ee" in "see", "i" in "mine" or
"ai" in "main".
This letter
never stands for the
short Arabic i sound (which may sound like the i sound in
"sick" or that in "zucchini").
Exception: when you write a non-Arabic word with Arabic letters, this letter may stand for the short "i" of pick or the short "e" of "peck" or any pickpecklike vowel, as well as for a long ee.
Of course, there's no clear-cut way to decide which words are Arabic and which aren't. The city name wa(sh)inTun وشنطن is well known by everybody able to read newspapers in the Arab world, so journalists may reasonably spell wa(sh)inTun وشنطن in the newspapers, knowing that their readers will be able to fill in the missing vowels. But most Arabs can't fill in the vowels missing in the Finnish city name "tmpr" any better than you can, so newspaperists will treat this word as "foreign", and spell it taambiyriy تامبيري, writing the two ay-sounds with the letter yaa# ياء and the ah-sound with an #alif ألف.
Arabic teachers of Arabic say that
the two dots are definitely a part of the letter
yaa# ياء, so they must
always be written.
But, in actual practice, many Arabs omit them when the yaa# ياء is last in the word. However common that custom is, I'd advise you against acquiring it yourself. If you always write the the dots, you'll avoid some confusions when reading your own handwriting.
The yaa# ياء, when followed by any other letter,
becomes a tooth with two dots below.
These are never ommited by anybody,
unlike the dots under final yaa# ياء.
Don't confuse the yaa# ياء with
other letters that also look like a tooth
but lack the two dots below.
This word is
#alyaman أليمن, pronounced "el yemen".
To learn to write the word-final yaa# ياء,
first pencil two dots, one in the center of a square
sitting on the baseline,
other one square and a half below the first dot. Then add
two more dots, making a kite-shape.
Join the four dots S-wise in pencil.
Then add a nuwn نون 's tail, so that it
goes around one square without entering it.
The final result is quite similar to a true yaa# ياء, but for
one detail: the line is broken at the fourth dot.
Now draw above the pencil lines with a marker, in three motions.
Add two dots below the lowest point of the curve
(or maybe a little
to the left of that, according to taste). And you're done.
Note that stroke 2 is horizontal in this figure. You might instead make
it slope downwards slightly, as in the figure at the top of this page
(whichever way you think it's more beautiful).
Note that the tail of the yaa# ياء, just like the nuwn نون's, should be a curve, but not half a circle, and it takes off.
When non-initial, as a rule of thumb it's read "ee". But not always: it can also be read yah, you, yee, eye, aye, eyey, eeya, ayee... See:
| spelling | pronunciation | meaning | English-like spelling |
|---|---|---|---|
| YD | yad يد | "a hand" | yed |
| FYL | fiyl فيل | "an elephant" | feel |
| QLBY | qalbiy قلبي | "my heart" | qolbee |
| 'LHRYH | #alHurriyyah ألحرية | "Freedom" | ul-hoor-ree-yah |
| BYT | bayt بيت | "a house" | bate |
| QYM | qayyim قيم | "it's valuable" | kie-yim |
| SY'RH | sayyaarah سيارة | "a car" | say-yaah-rah |
| MYT | mayyit ميت | "a dead man" | may-yitt |
| MYT | mayt ميت | "a dead man" | mate |
There are two ortographic monsters than can be easily mistaken for a yaa# ياء: the broken 'alif, which looks at first view like a yaa# ياء but is really a variant shape of the 'alif, and the yaa# hamzah ياء همزة.
Copyright (c) 2001-2009
Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/net/arabe/y.en.html
Last revised: 2009-01-19
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