page_title: Tangut script
section_title: Structure
hierarchical_section_title: Tangut script / Structure
caption_attribution_description: Tangut character for "finger" and "toe". Based on the image Image:Tangut script 3.jpg. Unicode U+1703A U+180CD.
context_page_description: The Tangut script was a logographic writing system, used for writing the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia dynasty. According to the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known, excluding variants. The Tangut characters are similar in appearance to Chinese characters, with the same type of strokes, but the methods of forming characters in the Tangut writing system are significantly different from those of forming Chinese characters. As in Chinese calligraphy, regular, running, cursive and seal scripts were used in Tangut writing.
  According to the History of Song, the script was designed by the high-ranking official Yeli Renrong in 1036. The script was invented in a short period of time, and was put into use quickly. Government schools were founded to teach the script. Official documents were written in the script. A great number of Buddhist scriptures were translated from Tibetan and Chinese, and block printed in the script. Although the dynasty collapsed in 1227, the script continued to be used for another few centuries. The last example of the script occurs on a pair of Tangut dharani pillars found at Baoding in present-day Hebei province, which were erected in 1502.
context_section_description: Tangut is a collection of nearly 5,800 characters similar to Chinese characters (hanzi) but more complicated. Most are made of more than 4 strokes, even up to 20. There are few indications of sound and meaning. In some cases characters that only slightly differ shape or by a few strokes have completely different sounds and meanings.
  Tangut characters can be divided into two classes: simple and composite.  The latter are much more numerous.  The simple characters can be either semantic or phonetic. None of the Tangut characters are pictographic, while some of the Chinese characters were at the time of their creation; this is one of the major differences between Tangut and Chinese characters.
  Most composite characters comprise two components. A few comprise three or four. A component can be a simple character, or part of a composite character. The composite characters include semantic-semantic ones and semantic-phonetic ones. A few special composite characters were made for transliterating Chinese and Sanskrit.
  There are a number of pairs of special composite characters worth noting. The members of such a pair have the same components, only the location of the components in them is different (e.g. AB vs. BA, ABC vs. ACB). The members of such a pair have very similar meanings.
  The Sea of Characters (Chinese: 文海; pinyin: wén hǎi), a 12th century monolingual Tangut rhyming dictionary, analyzes what other characters each character is derived from. Unlike Chinese, a component does not have a fixed semantic meaning or phonetic value, but rather the semantic meaning or phonetic value of the character that the component is derived from. For example, the person radical 𘤊 can have the meaning of bird (𗿼 *dźjwow), as in 𗿝 *dze "wild goose" = 𗿼 *dźjwow "bird" + 𗨜 *dze "longevity". But it is also used as a component to convey meanings of smoke, food, and time, among others.
  Some components take different shape depending on what part of the character they appear in (e.g., left side, right side, middle, bottom).
caption: The Tangut characters for "toe" (left) and "finger" (right), both characters having the same components
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