Tangut character for “to run”

It denotes the action of running.

A Tangut–Chinese dictionary by Li Fanwen lists this glyph as a verb translated into English as “to run.” It is a written verb, not a drawing of someone moving.

Is 𘙹 a Chinese character?

No: it belongs to a separate script.

Tangut was the language of Western Xia, a medieval state in what is now northwestern China. Its writing was modeled on Chinese character-building principles, but this glyph is not a Chinese character and has no Chinese reading.

Why did Western Xia create Tangut writing?

It gave Western Xia an official written language.

Emperor Li Yuanhao ordered Tangut writing in 1036, two years before Western Xia became an independent state. Tangut was the state's language; the new script marked a distinct identity from Song China, served government, and carried Buddhist translations.

Khitan neighbors had created scripts earlier in the region, but Tangut’s design draws on Chinese character-building principles rather than copying Khitan characters. The earliest surviving dated Tangut document is an official dispatch to a military inspector from 1072. Tangut writing survived Western Xia’s fall in 1227; a Buddhist stone monument still bore a Tangut inscription in 1502.