Tangut character 𘃌

It belongs to the Tangut script.

The Tangut script was used to write the Tangut language in the Western Xia state. Its square, built-up forms can resemble Chinese writing, but appearance alone does not make a Tangut character Chinese or give it a Chinese reading.

Li Fanwen’s Tangut Dictionary index lists 𘃌 in the row for Chinese reference character 畭 and gives the khie reading as a scholarly reconstruction. This is an index cross-reference, not a modern Mandarin pronunciation or an English gloss; it does not make the two characters interchangeable.

Why was the Tangut script made?

It served a state and its language.

An expert overview dates the Tangut script’s emergence to around 1036, when neighboring states were developing distinct writing systems in a region shaped by Chinese writing. Tangut was put to work quickly: schools taught it, official documents used it, and diplomatic records sometimes paired it with Chinese.

Western Xia fell in 1227, yet Tangut writing continued for centuries; a Baoding Tangut example is dated 1502. Its role shifted from everyday state writing to scholarly study. Unicode’s Tangut charts use structural indexes, including radical-and-stroke groupings, to help readers find and analyze characters.