Tangut language

Tangut (also Xīxià or Hsi-Hsia or Mi-nia) is an ancient northeastern Tibeto-Burman language once spoken in the Western Xia, also known as the Tangut Empire. It is classified by some linguists as a Qiangic language, which includes the Northern and Southern Qiang languages and the Rgyalrong languages, among others.

Tangut was one of the official languages of the Western Xia (known in Tibetan as Mi-nyag, and in Chinese as 彌藥 mí yào), which was founded by the Tangut people and obtained its independence from the Song dynasty at the beginning of the 11th century. The Western Xia were annihilated when Genghis Khan invaded in 1226 AD.

The Tangut language has its own script, the Tangut script.

The latest known text written in the Tangut language, an inscription of a Buddhist dharani, dates to 1502 AD, suggesting that the language was still in use nearly three hundred years after the destruction of the Tangut Empire.

Rediscovery