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When Katakana イ is followed by a reduced vowel symbol ェ, it assumes the consonantal values of the y of ya, and the combination represents the syllable ye which occurs only in loanwords. In the less innovative variety of Japanese, a two-syllable sequence イエ or エー occurs instead.
Examples:
イェーメン
yeemen 'Yemen'
"...one-fourth of all the characters used in modern Japanese occur in three-fourths of all the most frequently occurring words. This means that by concentrating on learning approximately 500 select characters, the student is assured of being able to read 75% of all the high-frequency words he will encounter in modern literature." - The Kanji Way to Japanese Language Power.
