Yi syllable ggo

It represents the Nuosu syllable written “ggo” in Yi Pinyin. The meaning of ggo in Nuosu comes from its place in a word or sentence; the Latin-letter spelling identifies the syllable, not an English translation. By itself, ꈤ is not a complete message.

Claims that Yi writing appears on very early stone, bronze, pottery, and bone objects are debated. The clearer surviving record includes regional inscriptions and manuscripts from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Paper and sheepskin Yi texts survive from around 1500.

Older Yi traditions preserved ritual, historical, family-lineage, and other knowledge in manuscripts and inscriptions, and through bimo performance; bimo are Yi ritual specialists. Regional forms were related but not always mutually intelligible. In the 1970s, a standard syllabary was assembled from regional Liangshan forms for writing and teaching Nuosu. ꈤ belongs to that modern standard.

Why does ꈤ look different on screen?

A font draws the glyph, so its strokes can vary. Traditional Yi writing had regional glyph forms and more than one writing direction. The standardized system is normally written left to right, while older traditions could run right to left or in vertical columns. If ꈤ appears as a missing-glyph box, switch to a font with Yi coverage; the drawing changes, but the character stays the same.