Tangut Character 17060

It is a Tangut character; its precise meaning is uncertain. Tangut was the writing system of the Tangut language, used by the Western Xia (Xixia) state. Unicode's algorithmic name identifies the encoded sign; it does not translate what the sign meant in Tangut.

An index to Li Fanwen's Tangut–Chinese dictionary, a reference pairing Tangut entries with Chinese equivalents, lists this glyph at entry 2564. It gives the scholarly reconstruction kjụ and the Chinese character 僮 as lookup clues, not a settled translation. The spelling kjụ is a specialist romanization of a reconstructed historical reading, not an English-style pronunciation guide.

Why does 𗁠 look Chinese?

Tangut writing drew on Chinese forms but represents a different language. The Tangut script was created in 1036 under Western Xia emperor Li Yuanhao. It gave Tangut speakers a writing system for their own language while neighboring Song China used Chinese characters. The project is linked to marking Tangut identity apart from Song China and producing a Tangut Buddhist canon, a collection of Buddhist scriptures.

Khitan neighbors had created two scripts about a century earlier, part of the region's writing history. A Tangut manuscript preserved at Khara-khoto, a site where Tangut texts survived, probably dates to the 12th or early 13th century. The script continued under China's Yuan and Ming dynasties, became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty, and was rediscovered by scholars in the late 19th century.