Yi Syllable Vie

It marks one syllable in the Liangshan variety of Yi. Yi Pinyin, a way to write Yi syllables with Latin letters, spells it vie.

The history of the Yi script includes regional forms older than the modern Liangshan standard. The earliest reliably dated surviving Yi inscription is a bronze bell from 1485. The Liangshan standard was devised in 1974 and officially promulgated in 1980. Those dates document Yi writing, not the origin of this exact standardized form.

The standard draws on regional Yi writing traditions preserved through bimo lineages; bimo are Yi ritual specialists. They used the writing in religious, medical, magical, genealogical and other texts. Older forms can differ in shape, sound and writing direction, so resemblance alone does not establish that an older sign is this same standardized syllable.