How to Write 佉 (qū) — Meaning “used in transliterations”

Imagine a person (亻) who wants to go (去) to an exotic place like Kashgar. The character "go" is 去, so picture someone leaving for a faraway city whose ancient name starts with a similar sound.

The left radical 亻 should be narrow and tall, with the first stroke a left-falling stroke (piě) starting high. The right part 去 has four strokes: a horizontal, then a vertical, a horizontal, and a curved stroke (sweeping out). A common mistake is to make the left radical too wide or to connect the two parts incorrectly.

仔 (zǐ/zǎi) means 'young person' or is a particle, while 仕 (shì) means 'to be an official'. Both are common Chinese characters with clear meanings. 佉, however, is extremely rare and used only in transliterations of foreign names or ancient terms, like 佉沙 (Kashgar) or 佉卢 (Kharosthi script).

佉 is almost exclusively found in historical or academic contexts for transliterating ancient place names and scripts, such as 佉沙 (Kashgar) and 佉卢 (Kharosthi). It never appears in everyday speech or modern HSK vocabulary. You may encounter it when reading about Silk Road history or ancient Indian scripts.

Common words containing 佉 include: 佉沙 (qū shā) — Kashgar (ancient name); 佉卢 (qū lú) — Kharosthi (ancient script); 佉楼 (qū lóu) — Kharosthi (ancient script).