What 𘲐 means
The inscription shows whether this sign marks a word or a sound. Khitan small script uses logograms (word signs) and phonograms (sound signs). Logograms often stand alone; phonograms usually cluster into words. Traditional columns run top to bottom, right to left; within clusters, signs go left to right, then top to bottom.
Yelü Diela created the small script around 925 to write Khitan. A 2025 study identifies the Liao-era grave inscription for Yelü Yugulin Taishi as the earliest known small-script text. Its use continued under Liao, Qara Khitai, and Jin until 1191, when the Jin court banned Khitan writing. The script used Chinese character forms and reportedly drew phonetic inspiration from Uyghur writing, though the scripts look little alike. Jurchen writing, developed under Jin rule, adapted Khitan models.
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Who writes 𘲐
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Questions people ask
1Why does 𘲐 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 𘲐
- Search it as
- khitan · qidan · glyph · sign · writing
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𘲐\18C90Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.