Large Khitan script
| Khitan large script |
|
|---|---|
Memorial for Yelü Yanning dated 986
|
|
| Type | |
| Languages | Khitan language |
|
Parent systems
|
Oracle Bone Script
|
|
Child systems
|
Jurchen script |
|
Sister systems
|
Simplified Chinese, Tangut script, Kanji, Hanja, Chữ Nôm, Zhuyin |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Kitl, 505 |
The Khitan large script was one of two Khitan writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th–12th centuries by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in north-eastern China. In addition to the large script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a functionally independent writing system known as the Khitan small script. Both Khitan scripts continued to be in use to some extent by the Jurchens for several decades after the fall of the Liao Dynasty, until the Jurchens fully switched to a script of their own. Examples of the scripts appeared most often on epitaphs and monuments, although other fragments sometimes surface.
Abaoji of the Yelü clan, founder of the Khitan, or Liao, Dynasty, introduced the original Khitan script in 920 CE. “Large script”, or “big characters" (大字), as it was referred to in some Chinese sources, was established to keep the record of the new Khitan state. The Khitan script was based on the idea of the Chinese script.
The Khitan large script was considered to be relatively simple. The large script characters were written equally spaced, in vertical columns, in the same way as the Chinese has been traditionally written. Although large script mostly uses logograms, it is possible that ideograms and syllabograms are used for grammatical functions. The large script has a few similarities to Chinese, with several words taken directly with or without modifications from the Chinese (e.g. characters 二,三,十,廿,月,日, which appear in dates in the apparently bilingual Xiao Xiaozhong muzhi inscription from Xigushan, Jinxi, Liaoning Province). Most large script characters, however, cannot be directly related to any Chinese characters. The meaning of most of them remains unknown, but that of a few of them (numbers, symbols for some of the five elements and the twelve animals that the Khitans apparently used to designate years of the sexagenary cycle) has been established by analyzing dates in Khitan inscriptions.
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