Tangut character for “to brood”

It means “to brood”: to sit on eggs and incubate them.

A dictionary’s reconstructed reading is mbo: an m moves straight into b with no vowel between, then o. Tangut character analyses identify 𗿼 as the parent source of a component in 𗿋; 𗿼 is glossed “bird, fowl, chicken.”

Why does 𗿋 look Chinese?

Its square style was modeled on Chinese regular script.

Tangut regular script is a formal, square-brush style. It writes the distinct Tangut language, so readers of Chinese may recognize the style without being able to read this character.

The Tangut script was devised around 1036 under Western Xia’s first emperor; the state began in 1038. Tangut writing served government, education, Buddhist translations, and other public and private texts. After Western Xia fell to Mongol forces in 1227, the script continued under the Yuan and Ming dynasties, with use attested in an inscription from 1502. It became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty. Scholars rediscovered it in the late 19th century and largely deciphered it in the early 20th century, especially through Nikolai Nevskij’s work.