Tangut Ideograph 17880

It is a family-name entry. Li Fanwen’s Tangut-Chinese Dictionary lists the reconstructed reading *śjwɨ. The leading asterisk marks a reading inferred from surviving evidence.

Tangut writing took shape in medieval Xixia (Western Xia), a state in present-day northwestern China, around 1036 for state records and translations. Its earliest surviving document is an official dispatch from 1072. The script also served Buddhist and private writing, continued after Xixia fell in 1227, then became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty. In a 1190 dictionary preface, Tangut scholar Gule Maocai said Tangut and Chinese scripts differed in form but shared roots. Some scholars propose influence from the neighboring Khitan writing system.