Yi Syllable Ddur

Use a Yi input method, type ddur, and select the matching candidate.

Microsoft's Windows instructions, updated 2024-06-20, say to add Yi under Language & region, switch to the Yi input method, type ddur, then accept the matching candidate with Space or Enter. Here ddur is the standard Latin-letter spelling; adding a tone letter would select a different syllable.

What does ꅐ mean?

It is the Liangshan Yi syllable ddur, not a full word.

A Yi syllabary gives each syllable its own written character. A tone is a syllable's pitch pattern. In Liangshan Yi's standard Latin-letter spelling, ddur has no tone letter at the end and marks the mid-level tone; final t, x, and p mark other tones.

Yi writing developed through regional traditions, not from a single settled invention. Older texts included ideographic forms—characters that represented words or ideas—and covered religious, magical, medical, and family-history subjects transmitted by village priests. A bronze-bell inscription from 1485 is the oldest reliably dated surviving example of Yi writing. The standardized Liangshan syllabary was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 to support literacy. It serves the Liangshan dialect; older Yi writing traditions remained regionally varied and often ideographic.

Is ꅏ the same as ꅐ?

No: the final x marks a different tone.

The unmarked ꅐ is Ddur with mid-level tone; ꅏ (Ddurx) has a different tone in Liangshan spelling. They are separate syllable characters, not style variants.