What 𘊨 means
No. It is a Tangut character. The Tangut script was introduced in 1036 for the Western Xia state. Emperor Jingzong commissioned it; the scholar Yeli Renrong is traditionally credited with designing it. Tangut drew on Chinese stroke conventions, but its signs were devised for Tangut rather than reused from Chinese.
The script served administration, letters, and Buddhist texts translated from Chinese in what is now northwestern China. Buddhist writing continued after the state fell to Mongol forces in 1227.
Does 𘊨 tell me its meaning?
No: 182A8 is an identifier, not a translation. Unicode assigned numbers to Tangut characters rather than English glosses; more than 6,000 were encoded in 2016. Specialist Tangut dictionaries index characters by number, where their readings and meanings belong.
A document dated 1070/1071 may be the earliest dated surviving Tangut writing.
Why does 𘊨 appear as a box?
The active font may not include Tangut. A missing Tangut glyph can appear as a box even when the text contains the correct character; display requires a font with Tangut coverage.
Ordinary keyboards do not offer Tangut keys. On Windows in Word, type 182A8 and press AltX; on macOS, enable Unicode Hex Input and hold Option while typing 182A8; in Linux GTK apps, press CtrlShiftU, type 182a8, then Enter. A Unicode-input app is the practical route on phones.
Who writes 𘊨
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Worth knowing
- A bilingual Tangut–Chinese glossary compiled in 1190, The Pearl in the Palm, helped scholars reconstruct Tangut readings.
Questions people ask
1Why does 𘊨 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
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How to type or find 𘊨
- Search it as
- Tangut · Tangut script · Xixia · Western Xia · 西夏文 · U+182A8 · 𘊨
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𘊨\182A8Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.