In several locations in the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, the preglottalized consonants and the voiceless sonorants do not exist, having merged with the other consonants. Syllable structure is CjVCT, where /j/ may follow one of the labial or coronal consonants, other than (and ) and the affricates. ( occur in recent Chinese loans.) All syllables start with a consonant, unless initial is analyzed as phonetic detail of an initial vowel. The final C is one of . Final plosives are both unphonated (have glottal closure) and are unreleased; the coronal is apical alveolar: . They reduce the tonic possibilities to two, "tones" 7 or 8. The Sui script (Sui: "le1 sui3," Simplified Chinese: 水书, Traditional Chinese: 水書, Pinyin: "Shuǐshū)" is a logographic writing system with some pictographic characters that can be used to write the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix). However, traditionally only shamans were familiar with the writing system, and it is not utilized for everyday use by ordinary Sui people. This system is used for geomancy and divination purposes. There are at least 500 different Sui characters, known as "le1 sui3" in the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix). According to tradition, these characters were created by "ljok8 to2 qong5" (Chinese Lù Duógōng 陸鐸公). Some of these characters are pictoral representations, such as of a bird or a fish, and a few are schematic representations of a characteristic quality, such a snail represented by a drawing of an inward curving spiral. Many of these characters appear to be borrowings from Chinese characters and are written backwards, apparently for increased supernatural power. Today, the Sui people use written Chinese for their daily activities. The Sui script is in acute danger of extinction, although the Chinese government is currently attempting to preserve it. In 2006, Shuishu was placed on the Chinese intangible cultural heritage list. In 2018, discussion on Shuishu integration into Unicode were ongoing.