Yi Radical Zot

꒫ is a Yi dictionary radical, a sorting sign rather than a word or spoken syllable. The separate Yi syllable ꊛ is romanized “zot.”

Text symbol

What ꒫ means

It is a dictionary sorting sign, not a spoken syllable.

Chinese character radicals are dictionary components grouped by shared strokes; Yi radicals follow that model, sorting Yi syllable signs without word meaning. is the primary form; ꒫ is its secondary form.

Yi writing has regional forms; evidence from pottery, stone, bronze, and bone points to older origins but is hard to date. The oldest securely dated example is the Chenghua bronze bell, from the 15th century. Bimo, Yi ritual specialists, preserved ritual, medical, and historical manuscripts in traditional Yi writing. The Liangshan Yi standard, devised in 1974 and promulgated in 1980, represents spoken syllables.

Font-dependent: without a Yi font covering radical signs, ꒫ may appear as a box.

Don't confuse it with

ꊛ

Yi Syllable Zot

ꊛ is the Yi syllable transcribed “zot”; ꒫ is the dictionary radical that indexes syllables.

Questions people ask

Why does ꒫ show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.