Tangut Ideograph 1836B

It links grammatical parts of a Tangut sentence.

An English index to Li Fanwen’s Tangut dictionary glosses the entry as “a conjunction.” That label identifies its grammatical role; its precise force comes from the surrounding Tangut sentence.

Why was the Tangut script created?

It gave the Tangut language a writing system for a state and its literature.

Western Xia emperor Li Yuanhao ordered the script, which was introduced in 1036 as part of state-building. A major purpose was likely to create a Tangut Buddhist canon; the script also carried translated Chinese Buddhist works, classics, histories, military writing, and literature.

After the Mongol conquest of Western Xia, Tangut writing continued in the Yuan and Ming dynasties but was obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty. It was rediscovered in the late 19th century and largely deciphered through early 20th-century scholarship, including Nikolai Nevsky’s work.

Is 𘍫 Chinese?

No; it is Tangut, a separate script for the Tangut language.

Tangut characters can look like Chinese ideographs, but the scripts are unrelated. Tangut is a Tibeto-Burman language; a Chinese-looking shape does not give 𘍫 a Chinese reading or translation.