Khitan small script
Escritura kitán pequeña
- Date
- 924 · confidence high
- Place
- Inner Mongolia, China
- Credited to
- Yelü Diela
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
Writing system created by order of Emperor Yelü Abaoji to transcribe the Khitan language of the Liao Empire; it used phonetic characters alongside Chinese borrowings and coexisted with the Khitan large script.
What it led to
- Written record of the Khitan language
- Continued use among the Jurchens after the fall of the Liao
- Key source for the historical linguistics of East Asia