Yi syllable nbat

It writes Yi nbat; the surrounding Yi word supplies the meaning.

The Liangshan Yi romanization is nbat, pronounced roughly with a nasal m followed by ba, at a high, level pitch. Yi writing is syllabic, so ꁽ contributes one spoken syllable; the whole Yi word carries the meaning.

Earlier inscriptions on stone, bronze, pottery and bone have been proposed as Yi writing, but their identification is uncertain. The earliest surviving example identified for the script is an inscription on a bronze bell from 1485. Older Yi scripts were used by village priests for religious, magical, medical and genealogical writing. A standardized Liangshan form was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980 to improve literacy; it later appeared in official documents, newspapers, literature and editions of traditional texts. It represents one Yi dialect, not every Yi language or regional writing tradition.

Is Yi writing part of Chinese?

No. Yi is a distinct writing tradition.

Traditional Yi writing developed alongside Chinese writing, but it does not appear to have been derived from Han characters. The standardized Yi syllabary grew from older Yi signs that represented ideas or words. Regional Yi traditions used different glyph sets and writing directions; standardized Liangshan Yi normally runs from left to right.

How do I type ꁽ?

On Windows, use the Yi input method's sound-based candidate list.

As of 2024-06-20, Microsoft documents a Windows Yi input method: enter the syllable phonetically, then select the matching character from the candidate list. On other systems, display requires a Unicode-capable text field and a font with Yi Syllables support.