Mountain-pass character

It writes a regional Japanese word for a mountain pass or saddle. As of 2026-09-10, it is recorded in Okayama place and infrastructure names, including 扇の嵶, 新扇の嵶トンネル, and 扇の嵶線. In this place-name tradition, it is read たお (ta-o) or たわ (ta-wa).

Some Chinese-language references give the Mandarin reading ruò (roughly “rwoh,” with a falling tone) and gloss it as “the lower part of a mountain.” That reading belongs to a different reference tradition; it does not determine the Japanese place-name reading.

How did 嵶 become a character?

It is a regional spelling with one proposed origin theory.

A 1976 Japanese-language account links the form to a local word for a gentle slope and to たお in たおやか, a word meaning “graceful” or “willowy.” It proposes that 嵶 was made by replacing the 女 component of 嫋 with 山. This is an explanation, not a documented inventor’s act.

Later Japanese linguistic scholarship treats 嵶 as a regional or dialectal character and groups it with 乢 and 垰, alternate spellings for the same dialect word. That makes them functional relatives; it does not prove they descend from the same written form.

What does 嵶 mean when someone sends it?

With no context, ask whether it names a place.

If it arrives alone, the safest reading is simply “this character”; ask whether the sender means the local place-name word or wants help identifying it.