Tangut Ideograph-17265

The Unicode label identifies the sign; it does not translate the Tangut word.

Western Xia emperor Li Yuanhao ordered Tangut writing in 1036 to build the state, translate Buddhist scriptures, and express an identity distinct from Song China. Tangut forms drew on Chinese writing without deriving from it; its creators followed their Khitan neighbors, who had devised two scripts a century earlier.

A Tangut manuscript from Khara-khoto, Inner Mongolia, probably dates from the 12th or early 13th century. Tangut books survived beyond Western Xia’s fall in 1227.