Yi Syllable Tie

ꄟ is one written sign for a Liangshan Yi syllable. The label “tie” is the standard’s Latin-letter spelling for that syllable; it is not the English noun “tie.”

This character belongs to the Liangshan standard used for Nuosu, one Yi language. Yi writing traditions vary by region, so this standard is not the full character set for every Yi community.

How did Yi writing develop?

Yi writing had local traditions before a modern Liangshan standard. The earliest surviving Yi example in the recorded history is an inscription on a bronze bell dated 1485. Yi writing served religious, magical, medical, and genealogical records transmitted by village priests.

A Liangshan standard was devised in 1974 and promulgated in 1980 to support literacy; it covers one Yi tradition, not every local one. In reference charts, Yi radicals are indexing aids for finding characters, not meaning-bearing parts of ꄟ.