يَاء
Where it comes from
All 17 pointsThe middle of the tongue وسط اللسان
The middle of the tongue presses up against the roof of the mouth. Jīm closes and releases, shīn spreads the air out sideways, yāʾ glides.
Yāʾ is made mid-tongue as a consonant, but when it lengthens a kasra it becomes the open cavity itself.
How to write it
The isolated form, shown as one common way to write it — Arabic stroke order is not fixed as rigidly as it is in some scripts.
- Stroke 1 of 3: part of the letter's body.
- Stroke 2 of 3: a dot, added after the body is finished.
- Stroke 3 of 3: a dot, added after the body is finished.
All four forms
The short gold marks show which sides the letter joins to its neighbours.
Ya connects on both sides, so it has all four forms.
Same shape, different dots
Joined inside a word these are written identically — only the dots tell them apart. Their isolated forms differ, which is why the alphabet separates them.
In a word
Isolated
رَأْيٌ
ra'y
opinion
Initial
يَلِدْ
yalid
he begets
Medial
عَلَيْهِمْ
'alayhim
upon them
Final
رَبِّي
rabbee
my Lord
In the Quran
فَمَنْ تَبِعَ هُدَايَ فَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ
سورة البقرة
لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ
سورة الإخلاص
صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ
سورة الفاتحة
وَادْخُلِي جَنَّتِي
سورة الفجر
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