Tangut character 177CE

The label identifies 𗟎; it does not translate it. 𗟎 is an individual character in Tangut, the historical language of Western Xia, so its word value belongs to Tangut rather than modern Chinese. The Unicode name “Tangut Ideograph-177CE” identifies the encoded character; it gives no reconstructed reading or translation. A transcription of The Sea of Writing, a historical Tangut dictionary, places it in a section grouping entries by sound; that location gives an index, not the word's meaning.

The script was created around 1036 as part of Western Xia state-building, with a native written identity and a Tangut Buddhist canon among its aims. It also carried government records and Buddhist translations, along with Chinese-derived Confucian, military and literary works.

Evidence includes a 12th-century dictionary tradition and 12th–13th-century manuscripts from Khara-Khoto. Tangut writing uses Chinese-influenced stroke construction but forms a distinct script; its state-script project also followed a neighboring precedent, as the Khitan had created an official script. The shapes can recall Chinese characters without having Chinese readings.

Why does 𗟎 show as a box?

Your selected font probably lacks Tangut characters. A browser or app uses a font to draw the glyph. If that font has no Tangut coverage, 𗟎 may appear as a blank box, a question-mark diamond or another fallback mark. A web font can display it on one page while another app still needs a Tangut-capable system font.

Legacy Tangut fonts sometimes mapped glyphs onto code points reserved for Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters (CJK), so the glyph could render incorrectly without its matching font. Mojikyo is one such system; some code points were mapped more than once, so conversion may need surrounding text to choose the intended character.