Baṛī ye

Baṛī ye (Urdu: بَڑی يے; lit. "greater ye") is a letter in the Urdu alphabet (and other Indo-Iranian language alphabets based on it) directly based on the alternative "returned" variant of the final form of the Arabic letter ye/yāʾ (known as yāʾ mardūda) found in the Hijazi, Kufic, Thuluth, Naskh, and Nastaliq scripts.[1] It functions as the word-final yā-'e-majhūl ([]) and yā-'e-sākin ([ɛː]).[2] It is distinguished from the "choṭī ye (چھوٹی يے; "lesser ye")", which is the regular Perso-Arabic yāʾ (ی) used elsewhere. In Punjabi, where it is a part of the Shahmukhi alphabet, it is called waḍḍī ye (Punjabi: وَڈّی یے) with the Gurmukhi equivalent .

Baṛī ye
بَڑی يے
ے
ۓ
Baṛī ye in its final-position form.
Usage
Writing systemArabic abjad
Urdu alphabet
Shahmukhi (Punjabi)
Saraiki alphabet
Kashmiri alphabet
Burushaski alphabet
Khowar alphabet
TypeAbjad
Alphabetic
Language of originUrdu
Phonetic usage//
/ɛː/
/eɪ/
Unicode codepointU+06D2
Alphabetical position38
History
Development
D36
Time period~1200 to present
Descendants◌ެ [lower-alpha 1]
Sistersی
ي
ێ
ې
ۍ
ئ
ٸ
ؠ
ؾ
ؿ

Transliteration equivalentsĒ
Ai (digraph)
Ei (digraph)
Variationsۓ
Other
Writing directionRight-to-left

It is also used in the Pakistani Pashto alphabet, with the Afghani equivalent being ی.

Forms

Baṛī ye is written multiple ways depending on its position:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ے ـے ـے ے
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ے ــــے ــــے ے

There are also medial (ـیـ) and initial (یـ) forms, but they are not encoded on Unicode and are generally represented by the regular ye.

Diacritical variants

In Urdu, only the hamza can be applied to baṛī ye:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ۓ ـۓ ـۓ ۓ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ۓ ــــۓ ــــۓ ۓ

In Kashmiri, there is a letter that is visually a baṛī ye with a small v sign above, known as the nīmü yāyūk:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ےٚ ـےٚ ـےٚـ ےٚـ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ےٚ ــــےٚ ــــےٚــــ ےٚــــ

Burushaski

In Burushaski, there are 3 baṛī ye's: ے, ݺ, and ݻ.

One of the additional letters is a baṛī ye with the Arabic–Indic digit 2 (۲).

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ݺ ـݺ ـݺـ ݺـ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ݺ ــــݺ ــــݺــــ ݺــــ

It is used to represent the short vowel /e/.

Another letter has a 3 (۳) above it. Unlike ݺ, which represents a shorter sound than the regular baṛī ye, it represents the same long vowel (//) but with primary stress (e.g. /ˈeː/).

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Naskh glyph form:
(Help)
ݻ ـݻ ـݻـ ݻـ
Nastaʿlīq glyph form: ݻ ــــݻ ــــݻــــ ݻــــ

Character encoding

Character information
Previewے
Unicode name ARABIC LETTER YEH BARREE
Encodingsdecimalhex
Unicode1746U+06D2
UTF-8219 146DB 92
Numeric character referenceےے

Notes

  1. Thaana vowel ebefili; thought to be derived from baṛī ye based on visual and phonetic similarities.

References

  1. Gacek, Adam (2009). Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-474-4303-2.
  2. Shakespeare, John (1818). A Grammar of the Hindustani Language. author. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
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