Yi syllable bburx

It writes one Liangshan Yi syllable; the surrounding text gives its meaning. In the romanized spelling bburx, final x marks the secondary-high tone, a pitch level in speech, not a spoken x. To translate it, you need the Yi word or sentence around it.

The earliest surviving example is an inscription on a bronze bell dated 1485; older stone and bronze examples have also been claimed, so the script's beginnings remain debated. Traditional Yi writing, also called Cuan or Wei in historical sources, was preserved by bimo—Yi ritual specialists—for religious, magical, medical, and genealogical texts.

The standardized Liangshan form was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 for the Liangshan dialect. It regularized an older regional tradition; other Yi languages have distinct writing traditions, and the older signs do not appear to derive from Chinese Han characters. In a 2022 study of public Nuosu writing in Xichang, the script could signal local language and cultural identity even when a sign's wording was inaccurate.

This is language text, not a reaction

When ꁰ arrives alone, treat it as a character sample or ask for the surrounding Yi text; it is not a standard reaction. Inside a longer Nuosu message, it contributes one syllable to a word or sentence. Readers of older or other regional Yi traditions may not read the standardized Liangshan form the same way.

Why does ꁰ show as a square?

A missing Yi glyph in the font is the likely cause. A box, question mark, or blank usually means the active font or fallback cannot draw the character; the underlying text may still contain ꁰ. Check the text value before assuming it is corrupted.