Yi syllable cap

It writes one spoken syllable in standard Liangshan Yi.

“Cap” is the Yi Pinyin reading: a Latin-letter spelling used to represent Yi syllables. Its final p marks a low-falling tone—the voice drops in pitch through the syllable—not a final p consonant. The syllable label alone is not an English translation; the surrounding Yi word or sentence supplies the meaning.

This standard writes Nuosu, also called Liangshan Yi. Other Yi varieties and local writing traditions differ, so do not treat this glyph as a universal spelling for every Yi variety.

How did ꊹ enter modern Yi writing?

It belongs to a modern standard built from older regional Yi writing.

A traditional account credits Aki with devising Yi script during the Tang dynasty. The earliest surviving dated inscription is Yi and Chinese text on a bronze bell from 1485. In traditional Yi society, village priests called bimo preserved local scripts for religious rites and magical, medical, family-history, and literary texts.

The modern Liangshan standard selected signs from older local writing and assigned one sign to each spoken syllable. It was devised in 1974 and officially approved in 1980 to improve literacy. As of 2024, standardized written Yi was used in schools, newspapers, reference books, public signs, and video subtitles.