Tangut character 𘀿

Use your operating system or editor's Unicode-entry command for U+1803F.

𘀿 is a Tangut text character, so an emoji keyboard will not offer it. The exact Unicode-entry steps depend on your device or editor.

What does 𘀿 mean?

Its Unicode label identifies it; it does not translate it.

A scholarly Tangut index identifies 𘀿 as Li Fanwen entry L4004 and gives no̱² as a reconstructed reading. This Latin-letter notation is a specialist transcription, not an English gloss, and the index entry alone does not support a reliable one-word translation.

To interpret it in a historical passage, use the surrounding Tangut words and a specialist dictionary.

Why was the Tangut script created?

It served the Western Xia state and its Buddhist translation program.

Tangut writing was commissioned in 1036 under Emperor Li Yuanhao. The Xixia (Western Xia) state used it to support a Tangut Buddhist canon and mark its written identity. Its square, component-built forms drew on Chinese writing, while its creation followed the example of Khitan neighbors, another northern polity with scripts of their own. A manuscript fragment from Khara-Khoto dates to the 12th or early 13th century.

Use later extended across Buddhist scriptures, Chinese classics, law, military writing, encyclopedias and literature, including works translated from Tibetan. The Western Xia fell to Mongol armies in 1227; surviving Tangut materials from the Yuan period are weighted toward Buddhist texts.