י Hebrew letter yod

What י means

It usually represents the consonant sound “y.” In some Hebrew spellings, yod also helps indicate a vowel, such as an “i” or “e” sound. It is a letter in a word, not a word on its own.

Yod’s alphabetic history reaches back to early writing around the eighteenth century BCE in Egypt and Sinai. Securely dated early alphabetic evidence in the Southern Levant reaches the mid-fifteenth century BCE. These dates describe the wider alphabetic tradition, not the exact modern form. Phoenician yod is part of the line that led to Greek iota and Latin I; an Aramaic and Nabataean branch led to Arabic yāʾ.

In יהוה, י begins the four-letter divine name in Jewish tradition.

A lone י does not carry that sacred-name context.

Part of the collection

א

Hebrew Letters & Symbols

Who writes י

Loading…

Don't confuse it with

1

ו

Hebrew Letter Vav

Yod is י; vav is ו, a different Hebrew letter. Historical copyists sometimes confused their forms.

Related characters

1

I

Latin Capital Letter I

Latin I belongs to a related alphabetic line: Phoenician yod led to Greek iota, then Latin I. The letters are historically connected, but are not interchangeable.

Alphabet

Hebrew alphabet27 letters

אבגדהוזחטיכךלמםנןסעפףצץקרשת

Questions people ask

1

Why does י show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.