Tangut ideograph 17EF9

Use a Tangut input method. The documented online Tangut IME accepts a reconstructed reading or dictionary lookup and offers candidates.

Its published instructions say Enter selects the first candidate when results are shown; when there are no candidates, Enter confirms the input, and an empty field inserts a line break.

What does 𗻹 mean?

Its reconstructed reading is roughly “boo.” Scholars write it bu̱; that is a pronunciation, not a plain-English translation. The Unicode name fragment ideograph-17EF9 identifies the entry, not its meaning.

Tangut is a distinct script for the Tangut language, a Tibeto-Burman language historically spoken in northwestern China. The script was created under Western Xia's first emperor around 1036 CE to write Tangut; it appeared in official, private, and religious works, including books, sutras, inscriptions, and manuscripts. It continued through the Yuan and Ming periods and became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty.

Why does 𗻹 look different?

A missing font can make 𗻹 appear as a box. Tangut needs font coverage; a browser webfont and another app's installed fonts may differ, so the character can render in one place and fail in another.

In 2023, Unicode documentation corrected 𗻹's reference glyph to match the form in Li Fanwen's 2008 Tangut-Chinese dictionary and a single manuscript, Precious Rimes of the Sea of Writing. There, 𗻹 is written with 𘤃 on the left and 𗶟 on the right. The full character 𗶟 has the same reconstructed reading, but it is a separate character, not a substitute.