How to Write 咿 (yī) — Meaning “creak”

Picture a baby (伊 sounds like "ee") making a creaky noise with its mouth (口). The character looks like a mouth opening to say "ee-yah" – just remember a baby's first babbling sounds. This links the left side (mouth) to the right side (sound of 伊).

The right part 伊 has 6 strokes: write the person radical (亻) first, then the hook (𠃋), then the horizontal and vertical strokes, and finally two small dots. A common mistake is to make the left mouth (口) too small or to forget the two dots on the right. Keep 口 about the same height as the left side of 伊.

咿 has a mouth radical and means creak or babble, while 君 means lord or monarch and has a mouth under a hand (尹). 吝 means stingy and combines 文 (writing) with 口 (mouth). Visually, 咿 has 伊 on the right, 君 has a different right part (尹+口), and 吝 has 文 on top.

咿 is mainly used in the repeated forms 咿呀 (yī yā, babble) and 咿咿呀呀 (yī yī yā ya, continuous babbling), describing the sounds babies make or creaking noises. It also appears in 咿唔 (yī wú, sound of reading aloud), but this is quite literary. You will rarely use 咿 alone; it almost always appears in these reduplicated sound words.

Common words containing 咿 include: 咿呀 (yī yā) — babble; 咿咿呀呀 (yī yī yā ya) — babbling sound; 咿唔 (yī wú) — sound of reading aloud.