Yi Radical Kit

It is the subsidiary form filed under the main Yi radical ꒑.

In the Yi lookup system, ꒒ is filed under the main radical ꒑. The related syllable is ꇸ, identified by the Latin-script label “Kit”; ꒒ routes a reader to entries rather than adding a word meaning to a sentence.

The oldest surviving dated Yi writing includes monumental inscriptions (texts on monuments), among them an inscription on a bronze bell from 1485. That dates a surviving example, not the beginning of Yi writing; local traditions used different sets of signs and writing directions.

Why was ꒒ made?

It gives readers a route to entries based on written form.

Recognizing the radical’s shape lets a reader find a group of Yi syllable entries without first knowing how a syllable is pronounced.

Handwritten Yi texts served religious, magical, medical and genealogical (family-history) purposes, and village priests transmitted them across generations. A standardized writing form for Liangshan Yi was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980. Its public use then widened to official documents, newspapers and literature.