Tangut Ideograph 17A18

Its dictionary entry is glossed with a Chinese textile term.

Li Fanwen’s Tangut–Chinese dictionary index links 𗨘 to entry L2008-3660 and gives 綿 as its Chinese gloss. The index also records a reconstructed Tangut reading written ba; this is a scholarly reconstruction, not an English pronunciation.

Use the textile gloss as a starting point. The surrounding Tangut sentence determines the character’s grammatical role and the best translation.

Is 𗨘 Chinese or Tangut?

It is Tangut, a distinct historical script.

The Tangut script was created around 1036 under Western Xia emperor Li Yuanhao to write the Tangut language. It helped express the state’s identity alongside the neighboring Song state and was used for a Tangut Buddhist canon. The earliest surviving example cited here is an official document sent to a military official in Guazhou in 1072.

After Western Xia fell in 1227, Tangut writing continued through the Yuan and Ming periods and became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty. Khitan scripts, made earlier by a neighboring medieval state, are a historical precedent; direct influence on Tangut is possible but not established. Surviving Tangut material includes Buddhist works and translated or adapted Chinese texts.

What does sending 𗨘 signal?

Read an unexplained modern message as a historical-script reference.

The square layout may look familiar to readers of Chinese characters, while someone who knows Tangut recognizes a different script. On its own, 𗨘 does not show that the sender means the textile gloss; a short gloss makes that intent clear.