What 𘱃 means
It records a sound, not a word translation.
A 2010 proposal to the Unicode working group records the scholarly Khitan reading “dur” for it. That denotes a sound, not an English gloss.
Khitan sound signs usually combine in clusters that spell words.
What was Khitan small script for?
It was made to write the Khitan language.
Most surviving texts are epitaphs (stone memorials) and monuments. Chinese characters shaped its forms; accounts link its inspiration to the Uyghur alphabet, though the scripts look different. The Jurchen people later adapted Khitan models for their own language.
Traditional history credits Yelü Diela and dates its creation to about 925. A 2026 study argues it was systematized later under Liao emperor Shengzong, citing a securely dated 1051 epitaph as the earliest surviving text. Khitan writing continued under the Jin dynasty after the Liao fell, until an imperial order abolished it in 1191.
Part of the collection
Who writes 𘱃
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Questions people ask
1Why does 𘱃 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.
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How to type or find 𘱃
- Search it as
- kitan · dur · 契丹小字 · 𘱃
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𘱃\18C43Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.