Khitan Small Script Character-18C03

𘰃 is a character in Khitan Small Script, the system for writing the Khitan language. The Khitan-led Liao dynasty used it alongside Chinese for inscriptions, records, poetry and translations. Traditional histories date the script's creation to 924–925; one catalogue dates its earliest surviving epitaph to 1053, while a 2026 study identifies an earlier one from 1051 and argues the script was systematized later.

Text symbol

What 𘰃 means

It gave the Liao court a way to write Khitan. Some forms came from Chinese characters; its sound-based principles drew on Uyghur writing, used by Khitan lands’ western neighbors. It served records, inscriptions, poetry, histories, translations and exams. After the Liao fell, Khitan writing remained in use under the Jin, the state that replaced Liao, until a ban in 1191. The Jurchens who founded Jin modeled their own scripts on both Khitan systems. Small-script inscriptions were rediscovered in 1922.

It is a historical writing character, not an emoji or a mood marker.

Don't infer a sender's mood from it; ask for the surrounding Khitan text.

Part of the collection

𘬣

Khitan Small Script

Who writes 𘰃

Loading…

Questions people ask

Why does 𘰃 show as a box on some devices?

It is recent: Unicode added it in version 13.0 (2020), and phones and computers whose fonts are older than that have nothing to draw it with. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.