Khitan Small Script Character 18CA7

The catalogue label identifies the sign, not its reading.

𘲧 belongs to the historical Khitan Small Script, which was used to write the Khitan language. The script is only partly deciphered, so the identity label alone cannot establish this sign's reading.

In an inscription, read it beside neighboring signs; it may be part of a cluster rather than a complete word by itself.

How was Khitan Small Script used?

It served as an official writing system for the Khitan language.

The historical account places its creation around 925, when Yelü Diela devised it for the Khitan language. It was used alongside Chinese in monuments recording merit, tribal and village names, diplomatic letters, flags, tallies, badges, examinations, poems, and translated books.

Surviving examples are chiefly stone funerary epitaphs—inscriptions on tombs—alongside writing on other monuments, walls, mirrors, tallies, coins made outside ordinary circulation, and a jade cup. The script continued through the Liao, Western Liao, and Jin periods; under the Jin it remained in use until 1191, when an imperial edict abolished the Khitan scripts. Later Jurchen large and small scripts were modeled on the Khitan pair.

Why does 𘲧 look wrong?

Khitan text needs font shaping and vertical-layout support.

Khitan text was traditionally written in vertical columns read from right to left. Sound signs, called phonograms, commonly form clusters of two to eight characters; script-specific shaping rules set their order and spacing.

A font may draw 𘲧 alone while an app displays a full passage too wide, unstacked, or turned. Correct display needs a Khitan-aware font and software that handles vertical layout; a layout failure does not mean the character changed.