The Yi Script
They Yi people have their own script that may date as early as the 7th century. It is a syllabary script, meaning each character represents one syllable, which had 1840 characters in its original form. The Yi script is one of the few eastern Asian scripts that appears to have no connection to Chinese characters, whereas most other East Asian scripts do. There have been recent publications of Yi documents although traditionally it is largely only the Bimo who read these religious texts. The word Bimo refers to the ability to read and chant these ancient texts.
Baisha Village (Yunnan Province), China
The Yi Script
They Yi people have their own script that may date as early as the 7th century. It is a syllabary script, meaning each character represents one syllable, which had 1840 characters in its original form. The Yi script is one of the few eastern Asian scripts that appears to have no connection to Chinese characters, whereas most other East Asian scripts do. There have been recent publications of Yi documents although traditionally it is largely only the Bimo who read these religious texts. The word Bimo refers to the ability to read and chant these ancient texts.
Baisha Village (Yunnan Province), China