Yi Syllable Chyrx

It writes one Liangshan Yi syllable; the surrounding word supplies the meaning.

Read ꍺ as one character-sized syllable in standardized Liangshan Yi, also called Nuosu. In the romanized spelling “chyrx,” the opening sounds like a breathy “ch” with the tongue curled farther back, followed by a high vowel said without rounded lips. Final x marks the secondary-high tone; the syllable’s word meaning comes from its surrounding Yi phrase.

Why does ꍺ show up as a box?

A box means the font cannot draw this Yi character.

ꍺ is a typed Yi character, so its visible form comes from the font on the device. A missing-glyph box means that device lacks suitable Yi coverage; it is not another form of the character. As of 2026, Nuosu SIL documents a complete Yi font and a keyboard for the Yi Syllables range.

When did the Yi script first appear?

There is no agreed single starting date.

Reports of Yi writing from the Western Han period remain debated. One reference history identifies a bronze bell dated 1485 as an early example; surviving paper and sheepskin texts are dated to around 1500. These are different kinds of evidence, so neither date settles one origin.

Before standardization, local Yi writing traditions varied and were not always mutually readable. Village priests passed down religious, ritual, medical, and genealogical texts in writing. The standardized Liangshan form for the Nuosu dialect was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980. The Chinese national standard GB 13134-91, adopted in 1991, underlies Unicode’s Yi encoding; standardized Yi punctuation follows modern Chinese conventions. Those standards do not make Yi writing Chinese.