Variant: wing with pond and ticks

·    Bonn lists this solely as an alternative reading for the “wing with pond and ticks” glyph (commonly read as k’i), though it designates chi’i as the preferred / more certain reading than k’i, which has a double question mark associated with it. In contrast, MHD lists k’i as the sole reading for this glyph and doesn’t give ch’i, not even with a question mark. MHD’s reading is more common, AFAIK.

·    This might be just an alternative or dialectical pronunciation of the “wing with pond and ticks” glyph. There is no “independent” syllabogram ch’i, contrasting with an “independent” k’i. This is quite different from the fact that there are “independent” syllabograms ch’a, ch’o, ch’u and k’a, k’o, k’u (spelling words ch’- vs. k’- which are different and not just dialectical variants of one another); and there are “independent” syllabograms cha, che, ch’i, ch’o, ch’u and ka, ke, ki, ko, ku (spelling words ch- vs. k- with are different and not just dialectical variants of one another). The exception being the well-known alternation CHAN/KAN = “snake”, where the two readings do not reflect a different word/meaning. But in this case, it’s only a single word, whereas in the case of ch’i- vs. k’i-, it’s all words.