ي

ye or yā(called yā`ě-ḥut̤t̤ī, 'the yā of the word ḥut̤t̤ī,' or yā`ě-mus̤annāt-ě-taḥtānī, 'the yāwith two dots below') is the thirty-fifth letter of the Urdū alphabet (the thirty-second of the Persian, and the twenty-eighth of the Arabic alphabet).. It corresponds, as a consonant, to the Devanāgarī य ya, and has the sound of the English yin youth.Like alif and wāw, this letter is also one of the ḥurūf-ě-`illat, or 'letters of weakness,' being sometimes used as a vowel, as has been shown at the beginning of the first letter in this volume. In this case, when it helps to produce the vowel sound ī(as in بِین bīn), it is called yā`ě-ma`rūf, 'the known yā'; and when it forms the diphthong e (as in ڑپی peṛ), it is called yā`ě-majhūl, 'the unknown yā.' When used as a number, يstands for 10; and in almanacs it is the character for Jupiter and the sign Aquarius.