Tangut character 𗉂

It names a woman with a recognized status below the principal wife.

Scholars reconstruct its Tangut reading as *ɣiẹ¹, a specialist transcription of its historical pronunciation.

The character is attested in the 12th-century Tóngyīn (“Homophones”), a Tangut reference work. The wider Tangut script was commissioned in 1036.

Read it as a historical status term.

Created for state-building and a Buddhist canon, Tangut writing later carried official records, translations of Chinese and Tibetan works, Confucian books, dictionaries, military texts, and literature. It borrowed visual and structural ideas from Chinese writing but formed a distinct script.

Concubinage was a regulated status: Tangut law distinguished a principal wife from a concubine, and household records from Khara-Khoto show such unions beyond the court. After Western Xia fell in 1227, Tangut writing continued for centuries; the last known dated example is from 1502. The term’s historical status makes it a poor casual pet name.

Why does 𗉂 sometimes appear as a box?

A missing box usually means the app lacks a Tangut font.

As of 2026, Tangut IME Online bundles Noto Serif Tangut and a fallback subset for extended characters. Its documentation notes that some mobile apps may not render Tangut until the text opens on a computer with Tangut font support. Different fonts can draw 𗉂 differently without changing its Unicode identity.

Ordinary keyboard layouts do not offer Tangut input by default. A Tangut web input method can provide lookup or handwriting; for repeated entry, the RIME input framework offers Tangut Cangjie, component-based entry, and dictionary-number schemes.