Arabic Letter Yeh

It writes y, long ī, or the end of ay. In Arabic, yeh is the consonant y as in “yes”, or the long vowel ī, an “ee” held longer. After a short a it closes the sound ay, as in بَيْت (bayt, “house”). Short vowel marks are usually left out, so the surrounding word tells you which reading applies.

Arabic writing grew gradually out of Nabataean Aramaic, an older script used for inscriptions and documents. Nabataean also appears in graffiti; later, writing in ink favoured joined letter shapes suited to documents.

The earliest dated inscriptions with a full Arabic letter set appear in the late fifth century CE. That marks a stage in the script’s development, not the first appearance of this exact dotted shape.

Why does Arabic yeh look different in Persian?

Persian uses its own related letter, ی. In Arabic, ي has two dots below. Persian yeh ی can match it at the beginning and middle of a word, but its final and standalone shapes have no dots. Urdu also has ے (yeh barree), a separate letter for an e vowel.

ى is alif maksura, a separate Arabic letter written at the end of a word for long ā; it is not a shape of yeh. When you type ordinary ي in connected Arabic text, the software picks the right joined shape for its position.