Yi syllable Pux

It writes one Yi syllable, not a fixed English word.

Standardized Liangshan Yi, also called Nuosu, uses a syllabary: each character represents a syllable. “Pux” is the romanized label for this one; the surrounding Yi word or sentence supplies its meaning.

The history of Yi writing stretches back beyond the modern standard. Some objects have been proposed as Yi writing from the Western Han period (206 BC to AD 9), but that attribution remains uncertain. Securely dated surviving examples go back at least to the 15th century. Earlier forms varied by region and were preserved chiefly by bimo, Yi ritual specialists, in religious, family-history, medical, magical, and historical manuscripts.

Why are there different Yi scripts?

The modern Nuosu standard is one branch of a wider tradition.

A scheme devised in 1974 regularized one form for each syllable in the Liangshan (Nuosu) variety; it was officially promulgated in 1980. The standard entered schools, textbooks, newspapers, and public writing. It descends from earlier Yi writing but does not represent every regional Yi language or manuscript form.

Traditional script literacy was concentrated among bimo. Schools and adult-learning materials spread literacy in modern standard Yi, but knowing standard Liangshan Yi does not by itself make an older regional manuscript readable.