Cherokee Small Letter Yi

It represents the Cherokee yi syllable.

Cherokee uses a syllabary: each sign represents a spoken syllable. Sequoyah developed it in the early nineteenth century to write Cherokee speech. A Kentucky shelter inscription proposed as the earliest Cherokee writing was rejected in a 2019 reassessment.

In 1828, the bilingual Cherokee Phoenix newspaper carried Cherokee news and sovereignty advocacy. Samuel Worcester used available Latin type shapes for some Cherokee syllables, while their sounds remained Cherokee. As of 2026, Cherokee Nation teaching materials include syllabary charts.

Most Cherokee text is caseless. Some older print adapted Latin size conventions, and modern typesetting can mark case: ᏹ is the small form paired with Ᏹ.