Khitan One (Masculine Form)

It is the Khitan numeral “one.”

It is a numeral logogram—a character that stands for a whole word. Scholars generally interpret the mark as masculine grammatical gender in Khitan.

Traditional histories date the script’s creation around 925. A 2026 reassessment argues regular use began later and identifies a 1051 tomb epitaph—a carved memorial—as the earliest securely dated text. It recorded Khitan during the Liao, Western Liao, and Jin dynasties; later Jurchen writing borrowed from both Khitan scripts. Jin authorities suppressed its use in 1191. This numeral stands alone; many Khitan words use phonetic clusters—groups of characters that spell sounds. A Khitan-capable font must arrange them vertically, in columns read from top to bottom and right to left.