Chotti YAY

‍ی ‍ے

Urdu Letter	Letter Name	Sound	Hindi Equivalent	Teacher
‍‌ی	Chotti YAY	Consonant “y” and long vowel sound “ee”	य and ई	Teacher Icon

	Final	Medial	Initial	Detached
Basic Forms	fill-in	fill-in	fill-in	‌ی
In Context	fill-in	fill-in	fill-in	fill-in
Write in Context	fill-in	fill-in	fill-in	fill-in

 

Sounds

 

Sound	Example (transliteration)	Example (Urdu)	Hindi Equivalent
the consonant “y”	yār	fill-in	य
the long vowel “ee” as in “green”	teen	fill-in	ई

Special Note:
While some Hindi and Sanskrit words end with a short “i” (ई), Urdu words cannot end with a short vowel. When transliterating such words from Hindi to Urdu, use a Chhoti YAY at the end.

Connections

Chhoti YAY can connect from both sides: Thus it has four forms: detached, initial, medial, and final.

Chhoti YAY is a member of the “point system” family. The letters in this family consist only of a point or cusp in their initial and medial forms. Dots or symbols above or below the cusp differentiate the members of this family. For aesthetic reasons the initial form of these letters can assume one of three slightly different shapes depending on which letter follows. The use of these three different shapes will come naturally with experience. Here are examples of three different initial shapes of ی:

fill-in

fill-in

fill-in

Compare the shape of final after various letters:

Fill-in

Chhoti YAY and Badi YAY look the same in their initial and medial forms. Only their final forms look different. See the notes on Badi YAY. Sometimes a small vertical diacritical mark is placed below medial YAY to indicate that it is Chhoti YAY as opposed to Badi YAY, but this mark is usually omitted:

Līlā

fill-in

लीला

Remember, any word starting with vowel sound must begin with the dummy consonant ALIF. So for words beginning with (“ee”), Chhoti YAY must be preceded by ALIF:

eemān

fill-in

ईमान