What ꍼ means
It marks one spoken syllable in modern Liangshan Yi writing. Each character in this syllabic script represents a whole syllable, not a separate consonant or vowel. “Rrax” is the romanized label for this one.
The earliest securely identified Yi example is a bronze-bell inscription dated 1485, though scholars debate older inscriptions and undated manuscripts. Bimo, Yi ritual specialists, used traditional forms in religious, magical, medical, genealogical, and ritual texts. The modern Liangshan form was devised in 1974 and promulgated in 1980 for literacy. It draws on regional forms and Classical Yi, an older written tradition, but is one branch, not every Yi language. Without Yi font coverage, ꍼ may show as a box; its identity is unchanged.
Is ꍼ an emoji? No; it belongs in Yi writing, not general chat.
Part of the collection
Who writes ꍼ
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Questions people ask
1Why does ꍼ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
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How to type or find ꍼ
- Also called
- rrax
- Search it as
- Nuosu · Liangshan · Yi script
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.