Tangut character 173AB

𗎫 is a character in the Tangut script.

Tangut script wrote the Tangut language. Manuscript indexes give this character a reconstructed reading, written tsji̱r in scholarly transcription, along with a Tibetan phonetic gloss—a pronunciation rendered in Tibetan letters. Unicode’s Tangut source data points to entry 2698 in Li Fanwen’s Tangut dictionary and to position 54.11 in a structural index, a catalogue organized by character shape. As of 2026, those records support identifying and pronouncing the character, but not a confident one-word English gloss. The Unicode name, Tangut Ideograph-173AB, is an algorithmic label, not a translation.

The script spread in 1036 as a state project of Western Xia, the Tangut state. Accounts disagree about whether Yeli Renrong or Li Deming deserves credit, so the evidence supports state-sponsored development, not a securely attributed invention. The script gave the state an official written language and a cultural marker distinct from Chinese rule.

Where does 𗎫 make sense today?

Tangut writing continued after the Mongol conquest and is attested in texts dated to 1502. It appeared in administration, religious translations, military writing, handwritten books, carved inscriptions, and print. For this exact character, the surrounding Tangut text matters more than the standalone glyph.

Tangut, Khitan, and Jurchen writing belong to a regional history of states that developed scripts with forms inspired by Chinese writing. That shared background does not establish a direct link between 𗎫 and any particular Chinese, Khitan, or Jurchen character.