What ꄤ means
It represents one Liangshan Yi syllable. In the Latin spelling “tap,” final p marks a low-falling tone, not a final p sound.
Tradition credits the legendary Aki with creating Yi writing. A bronze-bell inscription dated 1485 is the earliest surviving example identified; older claims remain debated.
Classical Yi appears in manuscripts used by bimo, Yi ritual specialists, for religion, divination, healing and family histories. The Liangshan standard was devised in 1974 and promulgated in 1980 for literacy, work and publishing; it represents one Yi variety.
For Yi readers, it carries a syllable; without Yi literacy, the shape alone does not reveal its sound.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does ꄤ 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.
How to type ꄤ
ꄤ\A124Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.