Yezidi Letter Ew

Ew represents the vowel written e in Yezidi’s Latin spelling. A close English approximation is the vowel in “bed.” The letter normally appears inside Yezidi words.

The language is Kurmanji, also called Northern Kurdish; in Yezidi usage it is also called Êzdîkî. The language can also be written in Latin, Cyrillic or Arabic scripts, so 𐺦 represents one writing choice, not every way of writing it.

How did the Yezidi alphabet change?

Its history connects disputed early texts with a modern revival. Two religious books, Maṣḥafā Reš and Ketēbā Jelwa, survive in later copies; their original manuscripts are lost. Some accounts date the texts to the 12th or 13th centuries, while others place the script’s creation in the 17th or 18th centuries. The books were first published in 1911. Yezidi clergy recognize the script but do not treat the copies’ contents as a source of their faith.

The modern alphabet was reshaped to fit spoken Yezidi: unlike the older, mainly consonant-based version, it includes vowel letters such as 𐺦 and changes some sound values. Its older letter order drew on the Perso-Arabic alphabet, the ordering tradition used for Persian and Arabic; the modern order reflects the Yezidi community’s preference. Two Arabic-derived marks remain in Arabic-origin words: hamza marks a brief catch in the throat, and madda over the letter Elif marks a long a at the start of some words.

Why was the Yezidi script revived?

It gives Yezidi religious and community writing a dedicated script. In 2013, the Spiritual Council of Yezidis in Georgia revived the alphabet for prayers, sacred books, organizational letterhead and community heraldry. A 2019 Unicode proposal reports clergy using it in a Yezidi temple in Tbilisi, including for saints’ names on the walls.