Lisu Letter Oe

ꓷ is the Old Lisu vowel letter named oe.

Its sound is a relaxed central vowel, represented [ə] in phonetics—close to the unstressed first vowel in English “about.” Old Lisu is also called the Fraser script, though that name can hide its collaborative history. Its letters adapt or turn Latin capital shapes, but Old Lisu does not distinguish uppercase and lowercase. A tone letter such as ꓸ can follow a syllable to mark its tone.

Between 1908 and 1914, Karen Christian preacher Ba Thaw adapted Latin shapes to create Old Lisu; British missionary James Fraser and Lisu pastors later revised it. The script supported Lisu literacy in schools and publishing, including Bibles and hymnbooks.

What does ꓷ mean when someone sends it?

In a Lisu message, it is part of a written word.

The letter supplies a vowel; by itself, it cannot identify the sender's complete word or intended message. Ask for the surrounding text before inferring a reaction.

Are Old Lisu and New Lisu the same?

No. They are separate ways to write the Lisu language.

Wa Renbo, a Lisu traditional priest, created a syllabic Lisu script in the early 1920s; in this kind of writing, each sign represents a syllable. It had fallen out of use by 2008. New Lisu, devised in the 1950s, used Latin letters and was based on Pinyin, the system for writing Mandarin with Latin letters.

New Lisu served Chinese government publishing from 1959 to 1980, while Old Lisu remained especially tied to Christian writing. Old Lisu returned to official use from 1983.