This is motivated by the question here: How to solve the final round of 2020 China National Linguistics Olympiad?
Question: Is Tangut on-topic?
Chinese.SE Meta (here) is the appropriate place to have this discussion. Having these discussions in the comments of random questions and expect them to be found.
Honestly, I don't even know what Tangut is. Wikipedia says:
Tangut (Tangut: 𗼇𗟲; Chinese: 西夏语; pinyin: Xī Xià Yǔ; lit.: 'Western Xia language') 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.
The comments at the question (I deleted them---we need these conversations to take place on meta):
I’m voting to close this question because it is not about the Chinese language. This is an interesting question though. – fefe 6 hours ago
@fefe I believe Tangut fits under the umbrella of Chinese language, the name of our site. – Mo.♦ 6 hours ago
@Mo. It might be a language that existed in China. But not Chinese language. – fefe 5 hours ago
@fefe “Chinese” could mean many things, we don’t specify what it means on the site. – Mo.♦ 5 hours ago
I agree with @fefe. Tangut is a dead language, whose relation with Chinese is that it belongs to the same family (Sino-Tibetan). By this logic, we should allow Illirian in French.SE. We can't even tag this [topolect]. – blackgreen 4 hours ago
@blackgreen Tangut is also part of the Qiang family, a language that still is alive and kicking. – Mo.♦ 4 hours ago
And also the relation between Qiang and Chinese is that they are both Sino-Tibetan languages. So are you going to allow Galician in a forum about Dutch? They're both Indo-European... – blackgreen 4 hours ago
When answering, it is important to interpret "Chinese" generously, like how Christianity is viewed broadly at Christianity.SE:
For the purpose of this site, please assume that the answer to "is X Christian?" is always the same as "does X self-identify as Christian?"
HedgeMage, Christianity.SE Meta, 2011
It's also noteworthy that we have very few such questions. The particular question also asks for a translation of Tangut into 汉语 (using the term in the image).
There are two Tangut-related questions:
- What's the significance of Tangut?
- How To Go About Learning Tangut (off-topic for other reasons)