Yi Syllable Te

It writes one spoken syllable, not a whole word.

In the standard Liangshan Yi romanization, the syllable is spelled te. A final t marks high-level tone, p low-falling tone, and x secondary high tone; because te has no tone letter at the end, it is mid-level, a steady middle pitch. The initial t is its consonant. One Yi character records a syllable, so ꄮ alone has no fixed English word translation.

Standard Liangshan Yi, called Nuosu by its speakers, uses this syllabary. It represents Liangshan Yi specifically; other Yi dialects have distinct local writing traditions.

Was the Yi script invented by one person?

One origin story credits Aki; local Yi writing has many forms.

Traditional Yi writing, historically called Cuan or Wei, used ideographic signs for words or ideas, unlike this syllabary. Its signs appear not to derive from Han characters, the script used for Chinese. One tradition credits Aki with creating the older script during the Tang dynasty (618–907).

Some scholars identify possible inscriptions older than a thousand years; cautious accounts place surviving monumental examples at about 500 years ago, including a bronze bell dated 1485. Formal use is documented by the early Ming, and paper texts survive from around 1500. Before standardization, bimo—Yi ritual specialists—copied religious, magical, medical, and family-history texts within local village traditions. Local scripts varied in glyphs and writing direction, and printing was limited before the 20th century. The standardized Liangshan form was devised in 1974 and promulgated in 1980 to support literacy, selecting traditional Liangshan forms and fixing left-to-right reading; it is not for all Yi dialects. A 2024 study of Liangshan high-school signs found students mixing Yi, Chinese, and other scripts to fit the space, while teachers tended to favor standardized Chinese and English.

How do I type ꄮ?

Use a Yi input method that offers candidate selection.

As of 2024, Microsoft documentation described a Windows Yi IME: enter phonetic input on a regular keyboard, then choose a Yi character from its candidate list. Enter the romanized syllable te and select the unmarked, midlevel form.