Re: Questions about yeh, hamzah on yeh, alef maksura and dotless ba

[Gregg Reynolds <gar at arabink dot com>]

Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya wrote:

Hi Meor,

> and maybe sometimes 649, by some users. What I understood from my
> research is, traditionally, the final yeh does not come with the dots.
> It was used mainly by non arabic speaker. Later one, it was somehow
> adopted by arabic speaker somehow.

FYI, this may be true historically, but in my opinion it is not
especially relevant.  Today final yeh (with yeh semantics) is dotted
virtually everywhere in the Arab world.  Egypt is the major exception,
but even in Egypt use of dotted final yeh is commmon (see the official
newspaper of Egypt at
http://www.ahram.org.eg/Index.asp?CurFN=fron1.htm&DID=8715).

If you got the impression that dotted final yeh is some kind of
foreignism that intruded into Arabic, I think you've been mislead.
Dotted final yeh is perfectly ordinary and understood by all literate
Arabs.  The evidence is very easy to find; just look at books published
in various places in the Arab world.  Or take a look at online newspapers.

The reason for this is easy to see.  The dots provide the essential
information needed to establish identity, since the undotted forms are
not graphically related (compare medial and iso form of any yeh).  They
are just like the other dots used in Arabic: they make it easier to read
texts.

I would bet that 99% of Arabic teachers in the Arab world would say
final yeh is properly dotted (unless it means alif).

-gregg