Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician yōd 𐤉, Hebrew yud י, Aramaic yod 𐡉, Syriac yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic yāʾ ي.
[citation needed] The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Iota (Ι),[1] Latin I and J, Cyrillic І, Coptic iauda (Ⲓ) and Gothic eis .
The term yod is often used to refer to the speech sound [j], a palatal approximant, even in discussions of languages not written in Semitic abjads, as in phonological phenomena such as English "yod-dropping".
The alif maqṣūrah with hamza is thus written as: In the Persian alphabet, the letter is generally called ye following Persian-language custom.
In its isolated and final forms, the letter does not have dots (ی), much like the Arabic Alif maqṣūrah or, more to the point, much like the custom in Egypt, Sudan and sometimes Maghreb.
In computers, the Persian version of the letter automatically appears with two dots initially and medially: (یـ ـیـ ـی).
Jot, or iota, refers to the letter Yod; it was often overlooked by scribes because of its size and position as a mater lectionis.
Much kabbalistic and mystical significance is also attached to it because of its gematria value as ten, which is an important number in Judaism, and its place in the name of God.