English homophones

ya/yah/yuh

"ya" is a pronoun; "yah" is an adverb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "ya" arrives as a pronoun, while "yah" is an adverb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "ya" then splits - "ya" (2 letters) vs "yah" (3).
  • No shared spelling stem: "ya" is 2 letters, "yuh" is 3; only the sound ties them.
  • No shared spelling stem: "yah" is 3 letters, "yuh" is 3; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across ya, yah, yuh: y. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • ya

    2 letters · 2 vowels · shape VV

    Inventory ay · private a

  • yah

    3 letters · 2 vowels · shape VVC

    Inventory ahy · private ah

  • yuh

    3 letters · 2 vowels · shape VVC

    Inventory huy · private hu

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "ya" when you mean: Nonstandard spelling of you.
  • Write "yah" when you mean: Yes.
  • Write "yuh" when you mean: you

Each spelling

ya

pronoun · /jʌ/ · #2,189 frequency

Nonstandard spelling of you.

yah

adverb · /jʌː/ · #14,254 frequency

Yes.

yuh

pronoun · /ˈjʌ/ · #49,157 frequency

you

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (ya, yah, yuh). Here's where to go from here.

  • "ya" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #2,189 in English). Full entry
  • Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
  • Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: young · Yeung · Yonge. Nearby cluster
  • Grammar often disambiguates this cluster, match the meaning to the part of speech before picking a spelling. Pick by meaning

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list