Khitan Small Script Character

𘲘 is a Khitan Small Script sound sign, read xa in one scholarly transcription—not Chinese “below.” It joins other signs to spell Khitan words.

Text symbol

What 𘲘 means

No. “Below” is a Chinese gloss, not this character’s meaning.

Scholars romanize it as xa in a Khitan spelling of Chinese xià (下, “below”). Chinese Xià (夏, “summer”) is rendered xa.ia. These examples point to a sound, not a meaning.

Why was Khitan Small Script created?

To write Khitan with sound signs as well as word signs.

Tradition dates its creation around 925 and credits Yelü Diela. The Liao court commissioned it for suffix-rich Khitan words, which fit the Small Script’s sound signs better than the earlier Large Script’s word signs. Its forms drew on Chinese writing; its sound-based method was said to be inspired by Uyghur writing. It served in court documents, epitaphs, poems and translations. The oldest securely dated surviving inscription is an epitaph from 1051. Jurchen writing later borrowed from both Khitan scripts.

Part of the collection

𘬣

Khitan Small Script

Who writes 𘲘

Loading…

Questions people ask

Why does 𘲘 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.