Tangut character ’ja̱¹

𘄢 is a Tangut character glossed as “promise; yes”; Tangut was the historical language of the Western Xia state in northwest China. Scholars reconstruct its pronunciation as ’ja̱¹. A philological study argues it can also be a question particle—a small word that marks a question within a sentence—so it is not just an affirmative reply. Tangut writing was created around 1036, adapting Chinese character-building methods to write this distinct language.