Yodh (also spelled Yud or Yod) is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). 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 (?), Latin I, Cyrillic ?, Coptic iauda () and Gothic eis ().

Origins

Hebrew Yud

Orthographic variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
?	?	?

Pronunciation

In both Biblical and modern Hebrew, Yud represents a palatal approximant ().

Variations

Yud is a mater lectionis, like Aleph, He, and Vav. At the end of words with a vowel, it represents the formation of a diphthong, such as , , or .

Significance

In gematria, Yud 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).

In Judaism

Two Yuds in a row designate the name of God Adonai and in pointed texts are written with the vowels of Adonai; this is done as well with the Tetragrammaton.

As Yud 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 Yud; it was often overlooked by scribes because of its size and position as a mater lectionis. In modern Hebrew, the phrase "tip of the Yud" refers to a small and insignificant thing, and someone who "worries about the tip of a Yud" 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. See The Mystical Significance of the Hebrew Letters - Yud

Arabic y??

The letter is named y??, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Y?? is pronounced in two ways. As a consonant, it is pronounced as a palatal approximant , typically at the beginnings of words. In the middle and end of words, the y?? usually (though not always) becomes a long close front unrounded vowel .

As a vowel, y?? can serve as the "seat" of the hamza: ?.

Y?? serves several functions in the Arabic language. Y?? with a shadda is particularly used to turn a noun into an adjective,called ????. For instance ??? Mi?r (Egypt) ? ???? Mi?riyy (Egyptian). The transformation can be more abstract; for instance, ????? mawd?` (matter, object) ? ?????? mawd?`iyy (objective). Still other uses of this function can be a bit further from the root: ?????? ishtir?k (cooperation) ? ??????? ishtir?kiyy (socialist); this is often used for creation of native terms for political philosophies: ?urr (free) becomes ?urriyy (liberal); mu??fa?a (guarding, preservation) becomes mu??fa?iyy (conservative).

A form similar to but distinguished from y?? is the ?alif maq??ra (broken alif), with the form ?. It indicates a final long open front unrounded vowel .

Typically, Egyptians do not use dots under final y??, both in handwriting and in print, resulting in substantial confusion with alif maq??ra to those not accustomed to the practice

Persian Ye

In the Persian alphabet "Yodh" is written and pronounced a bit different from Arabic and has a different code in Unicode. Yodh in Persian is called Ye; in its final form, the letter does not have dots (?), similar to but distinguished from the Arabic ?alif maq??ra.

als:? ar:? arc:??? br:Yod (lizherenn) de:Jod (Hebräisch) es:Yud fa:? fi:Jod fr:Yod (lettre) gl:Iode he:? ja:? ko:?? ms:Ya (huruf Arab) nl:Jod sv:Yod th:????