Yi Syllable Dda

ꄿ represents the Nuosu syllable “dda,” not a full word. In the standard Liangshan Yi spelling, which uses Latin letters, this form has no final tone marker and so carries a steady mid-level pitch. The same syllable can belong to different words; read the surrounding Yi text to know which word it forms.

Older Yi writing, historically called Cuan or Wei, had many local forms. Village priests copied it for religious, magical, medical, and family-history texts, rather than as one shared everyday script. One tradition credits Aki with devising it during the Tang dynasty (618–907); the earliest surviving inscription is on a bronze bell dated 1485. The old signs were influenced by Chinese writing but appear not to derive from Chinese characters. Built from older Yi forms, the modern Liangshan syllabary was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 to improve literacy. It represents one dialect, not every Yi tradition.

A missing box is a font problem

ꄿ is text drawn by the active font. If it appears as an empty box, that font lacks this Yi syllable; the character itself has not changed. Nuosu SIL includes Yi syllables.

As of 2026, SIL lists a keyboard layout for Yi Syllables, including ꄿ, but not for the separate Yi Radicals block. A general Unicode picker can insert it by its Unicode name or U+A13F.