Yezidi Letter Sin

𐺑 represents the “s” sound in Yezidi writing. It belongs inside a word; on its own, it is usually a character sample rather than a complete message.

Yezidi text runs right to left, and modern letters normally remain separate instead of connecting like letters in Arabic writing. One Yezidi keyboard layout maps s to Sin and s= to Shin; other layouts may differ. Yezidi Shin, 𐺒, represents the “sh” sound, as in “ship,” while Sin represents the “s” in “sit.”

When did the Yezidi script begin?

Its age is disputed, with estimates spanning several centuries. Some scholarship dates its emergence to the 13th–14th centuries; other accounts place its creation in the 17th–18th centuries. The two best-known Yezidi religious works, Maṣḥafā Reš and Ktēbā Jelwa, were first published in 1911; when they were written is unclear, and their claim to an ancient manuscript tradition has been challenged.

The script’s earliest documented purpose was religious writing. One work contains a speech attributed to Tawûsê Melek, a figure in Yezidi religion; the other describes how the world began.

In 2013, Yezidi representatives in Georgia introduced a modernized alphabet with vowels and revised sound values for modern Yezidi, also called Kurmanji. Its classical letter order was based on the Perso-Arabic alphabet, and Arabic-derived marks appear in words of Arabic origin. Yezidi is also written in Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic scripts; the modernized alphabet was used for prayers, sacred books, letterhead, and heraldry.