What 𘴆 means
It marks respect. Tangut was the language of the Western Xia state; scholars reconstruct the reading as kwej.
Why was Tangut script created?
To write the Tangut language. In 1036, Western Xia ruler Li Yuanhao ordered his adviser Yeli Renrong to design the script. Its square forms followed a standard Chinese handwriting style, but it was a distinct writing system. After the Mongol conquest of Western Xia in 1227, Tangut writing continued under China’s Yuan and Ming dynasties, then became obsolete by the end of the Ming dynasty.
Why was 𘴆 confused with a negative prefix?
Older dictionaries printed the two characters alike. 𘴆 means “respectful”; 𘅇 is a negative prefix meaning “no.” Older Tangut texts show that a small difference in one part changed the meaning, so Unicode 13.0 encoded them separately.
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Who writes 𘴆
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Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 𘴆 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.
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How to type or find 𘴆
- Search it as
- tangut · xixia · western xia · kwej · respectful
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𘴆\18D06Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.