What ꈭ means
It belongs to standardized Liangshan Yi writing used for Nuosu.
The romanized label “ggup” follows the Liangshan system: its final p marks a low-falling tone, rather than adding a Latin letter to the glyph. The surrounding Yi text shows how the syllable works in a word.
How old is the Yi script?
Yi writing has a long history, but no single first date settles it.
Early Yi inscriptions are reported on pottery, stone, bronze, and bone; a bronze casting and a stone tablet are dated to 206 BC–AD 9. Paper manuscripts survive from at least the late Ming. These records concern the wider writing tradition, not the first appearance of this standardized glyph.
Regional forms were copied by bimo, Yi ritual specialists, for ceremonies, funerals, exorcism, and divination. The Liangshan standard was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 to improve literacy. It was used for official documents, newspapers, literature, and new editions of older ritual works.
How do I type ꈭ?
Use a Yi keyboard or Unicode entry.
Use a dedicated Yi input method, or your operating system’s hexadecimal Unicode entry if available, entering A22D. If the character appears as a box or blank, choose a font with Yi coverage; the character itself stays the same.
It reads as Yi writing, so it suits a reader who expects Yi text.
Alone in a chat, it gives no reliable translation; ask for context.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsDon't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
2Is ꈭ Hanzi?
No. Hanzi are Chinese characters; ꈭ is a Yi syllable. Yi and Han writing have a history of contact, but this glyph is not a Han character variant.
Why does ꈭ show as a box?
The active font may not include Yi syllables. Choose a font with Yi coverage; the box is a missing-glyph placeholder, while the character remains ꈭ.
How to type ꈭ
ꈭ\A22DCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.