Yum, Yum Yams

The letter y is used as a consonant less than 5 percent of the time. When it is a consonant, it usually appears at the front of a word or syllable as it does in yellow, yam, and beyond. A vast majority of the times when y appears in a word, it is a vowel. When it is a vowel, it can be the long /i/ vowel sound as in fly, the long /e/ vowel sound as in lady, and the short /i/ vowel sound as in nymph. There are other spellings of the /y/ sound. Most common are j in the word hallelujah and double l in Spanish words such as tortilla.