Khitan Small Script character 18BE5

It has no secure standalone English translation.

“Character-18BE5” is Unicode’s sequential inventory label, not a gloss. Khitan Small Script is only partly deciphered, and many of its sound values remain unknown.

A sign can represent a word directly or form part of a phonogram cluster, where several signs combine by sound to represent a word. Without the surrounding text, this glyph alone cannot reveal the word.

What was Khitan Small Script made for?

It was created to write the Khitan language.

Khitan Small Script was created about 925 CE; Unicode attributes it to Yelü Diela and says its creation was said to be inspired by Uyghur script. Dated material reaches back to 983, which records use rather than the script’s creation.

Surviving text is concentrated in funerary epitaphs—inscribed memorials—for Khitan royalty and aristocracy. The script also appears on monuments recording merit, in diplomatic correspondence, on flags and counting records, and in exams, poems, and translations. It returned to scholarly attention in 1922; during the Jin dynasty, the Jurchen people modeled their script on Khitan scripts.

Why does 𘯥 look wrong in some text?

Fonts and layout support shape how it appears.

Historical text normally used vertical columns read from right to left. Unicode also documents horizontal, left-to-right text and simple character-by-character display. Phonograms form clusters; Unicode treats the common and less common cluster arrangements as stylistic choices, not different meanings.

A font can show 𘯥 alone even when the source placed it in a larger cluster. Reproducing historical text requires a font with Khitan coverage and layout software that handles the script’s clusters.