Yi Syllable Chuot

It is one Yi syllable; its meaning comes from context.

In the standardized Liangshan Yi syllabary, ꍥ is written in Latin letters as chuot. It has no independent meaning as a word-part (morpheme), so the surrounding Yi text supplies the word or phrase.

Securely dated evidence for Yi writing reaches the 15th century, and surviving paper texts include copies from the late Ming period, the final part of China's Ming dynasty. The wider tradition's origins are debated. This character belongs to a later standardized script.

Why was the modern Yi script standardized?

It adapted older Northern Yi writing for Liangshan literacy and public use.

Classical Yi texts were preserved and transmitted by bimo, Yi ritual specialists. They include scripture, legend, history, medicine, and astrology, so the writing carried ritual knowledge as well as practical learning.

The Liangshan phonetic syllabary was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 for literacy materials, newspapers, literature, and public writing. It descends from older Northern Yi forms but was standardized for the Liangshan dialect, not all Yi dialects. Unicode's Yi Radicals—stroke elements associated with this standardized set—are not translations of ꍥ.