Yi syllable hlup

It marks a Nuosu syllable, not a fixed English word. The Liangshan romanization hlup names its syllable; final p marks a low-falling pitch pattern, not a consonant sounded at the end. In a Nuosu word, the surrounding syllables show how this written syllable functions.

Traditional Yi writing had regional forms and was used especially by bimo, ritual specialists who passed down manuscripts about religion, magic, medicine, family lines, and literature. One origin tradition credits Aki with devising the older signs during China's Tang dynasty (618–907). The oldest reliably dated surviving inscription is on a bronze bell cast in 1485; that dates Yi writing, not ꆮ's modern form. Traditional signs were often ideographic—many represented words or ideas—and do not appear to derive from Han characters.

The Liangshan standard was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980. It adapted older regional forms into a syllabary, where each sign represents a syllable, for the Nuosu variety of Yi and broader literacy, schooling, and publishing. It is not a common notation for every Yi variety.