Tangut character 18134

In Tangut, 𘄴 expresses desire or need. English dictionaries gloss it as “to desire,” “want,” or “need”; context decides which wording fits.

The Tangut ruler Li Yuanhao commissioned the script in 1036–37 for state documents and cultural work, including a Buddhist canon; it also marked the Western Xia state's identity beside Song China. Its block-shaped characters resemble Chinese writing, but Tangut is a distinct script for the Tangut language. An official document from 1072 is an early surviving witness. Tangut writing continued into the Yuan and Ming periods after the Western Xia state fell.

A printed Tangut wordbook surfaced at a Beijing auction in 2014 and was studied later. Its entry glosses 𘄴 as “want/need,” while its title uses the character in a phrase translated “selected essentials.” That is a contextual extension of the same need-related idea.

How do I type 𘄴?

Use a Tangut-aware input method. RIME, an input-method system, offers Tangut schemes that search by recurring components (“radicals”), four-corner codes, Cangjie shape codes, or dictionary numbers; then select the matching candidate.

These are specialist, candidate-based methods; there is no universal phonetic keyboard spelling for Tangut. As of 2025, some mobile apps lacked a font that could draw Tangut, so the text may still be present even when the screen shows a box.