Yi Syllable Bbux

It writes one spoken syllable in the Liangshan Yi standard. Yi is a language with its own writing system; the Liangshan standard is also known as Nuosu. In the standard Latin-letter transcription, “bbux” identifies this syllable, and its final x marks the secondary-high tone, a pitch pattern. The glyph’s word meaning depends on the complete Yi word and dialect.

Some of the earliest claimed Yi-script inscriptions are linked to objects from China’s Western Han and Shu Han periods; the oldest reliably dated examples are inscriptions on Chenghua Bells from the 15th century. Traditional Yi texts were maintained by bi-mox, Yi religious specialists, and covered scripture, legend, history, medicine, and astrology. Standardization in the 1970s brought Yi writing into literacy materials, newspapers, and practical textbooks.

Why can Yi writing look different across regions?

The modern Liangshan standard represents one regional Yi tradition. Classical Yi writing had regional forms and many signs that represented ideas rather than syllables. The modern standard reorganized a local tradition into a phonetic syllabary—a set of characters, each representing a spoken syllable—for one dialect. Other Yi traditions use different shapes and sound values, so a character from this standard may not work the same way in another variety.

Yi writing also shares conventions with Chinese writing: the standard uses Chinese punctuation, follows the traditional Chinese writing direction, and has dictionary lookup radicals modeled on Chinese radicals. A radical is a component used to find a character in a dictionary. These shared conventions do not make Yi and Chinese the same writing system.

How do I type ꁭ?

Use a Yi input method or a Yi-capable keyboard layout. On Windows (as of 2026), add Yi as an input language and use the Yi IME: type the syllable’s Latin-letter phoneme spelling, then choose the intended character from the candidates. Enter or Space accepts the first suggestion. The SIL Yi Syllables keyboard layout covers the Yi syllable block; the separate Yi Radicals block is not included.