yeh

Yeh is a romanization used for a demonstrative word in Hindustani languages, notably Hindi and Urdu. In Devanagari and related scripts, the word is written as यह, and in Urdu’s Perso-Arabic script it appears as یہ. It generally means “this” or “these” and is used to refer to items near the speaker.

As a grammatical element, yeh functions as a demonstrative determiner or pronoun. It precedes a noun to form phrases such as yeh kitab (this book) and can also stand alone in sentences where the reference is clear from context. In contrast to voh (that) or woh, yeh marks proximity and immediacy in communication. The form is widely used across Hindustani speech and appears in various regional varieties with slight pronunciation differences.

In popular culture, the word yeh is common in Hindi-language titles and songs, often conveying the idea of immediacy or emphasis. For example, film and song titles such as Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani use the word to convey the sense of “this youth is crazy,” illustrating how yeh conveys a proximal, emphatic sense within creative works.

Yeh also appears as a romanization variant in East Asian contexts. It is sometimes used as a surname romanization, associated with characters such as 葉/叶 in Chinese, where the pronunciation in Mandarin is commonly rendered as Ye, but some families spell it Yeh in English-language contexts. The usage highlights how a single syllable can function as a common function word in one language family while serving as a name element in another.