The sound can be a semivowel version of /i/, /j/, as well, especially when the regular phoneme is impractical, a good example being the word bāyu "wind". ![]() The natural sound it makes is generally what you have cited from Wikipedia, a semivowel version of /e/, /e̯/, for example, মায়া māyā. The letter was created essentially because Bengalis no longer pronounced the Sanskrit letter য ya the same at the beginnings of words, so we made it so that the old letter ya be pronounced ja ( antastha ja) and made a new letter which modifies the old one with a bindu/ nuqta (়) to represent something near the original sound, which on paper is only to be used when non-word-initial. ![]() অন্তস্থ য় antastha ya (many people say antastha a instead) is a bit of a tricky letter which we can thank Vidyasagar for.
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