Nuosu SIL is a single Unicode font for the standardized Yi script used by a
large ethnic group in southwestern China. The traditional Yi scripts have
been in use for centuries, and have a tremendous number of local variants.
The script was standardized in the 1970s by the Chinese government. In the
process of standardization, 820 symbols from the traditional scripts of the
Liangshan region were chosen to form a syllabary.

The syllable inventory of a speech variety from Xide County, Sichuan was
used as the phonological basis for standardization. For the most part there
is one symbol per phonologically-distinct syllable and vice-versa. The
direction of writing and reading was standardized as left-to-right.
Punctuation symbols were borrowed from Chinese, and a diacritic was
incorporated into the system to mark one of the tones.

Nuosu SIL includes a complete set of Yi syllables and radicals as defined in
the Unicode Standard, plus a basic set of Latin characters and punctuation.
Yi radicals which were added to Unicode 3.2 (U+A4A2..U+A4A3, U+A4B4, U+A4C1,
U+A4C5) are also included in the font.
