The Structure of the Tangut [Hsi Hsia] Characters

Abstract

It is well-known that the use of Chinese characters spread quickly to those countries that were in prolonged contact with China. Thus, for example, it was adopted to write down Japanese and Korean, languages that are genetically unrelated to Chinese, as well as Vietnamese, a genetically related language. Still today, it remains the preferred writing form of the majority of people in East Asia.l But this cultural influence appears to have been limited to China's eastern and southern neighbors. The states of Central Asia, whose relations with China antedate those of Japan and Korea by several hundred years, did not adopt the Chinese script. Eventually, and at about the time China's eastern neighbors adopted the Chinese script, they adopted the writing of the Sogdians, hence a script of Aramaic origins.2 The exception to this rule were the Ch'i-tan, a Turkic people; the Jurchen, a Tungusic people, and the Tangut, commonly assumed to be of Tibetan o-rigins but probably a Turkic people.3 Even though all three laid political claim to China, they