Khitan large script in the context of "Khitan language"

The Chinese family of scripts includes writing systems used to write various East Asian languages, that ultimately descend from the oracle bone script invented in the Yellow River valley during the Shang dynasty. These include written Chinese itself, as well as adaptations of it for other languages, such as Japanese kanji, Korean hanja, Vietnamese chữ Hán and chữ Nôm, Zhuang sawndip, and Bai bowen. More divergent are the Tangut script, Khitan large script, Khitan small script and its offspring, the Jurchen script, as well as the Yi script, Sui script, and Geba syllabary, which were inspired by written Chinese but not descended directly from it. While written Chinese and many of its descendant scripts are logographic, others are phonetic, including the kana, Nüshu, and Lisu syllabaries, as well as the bopomofo semi-syllabary.

These scripts are written in various styles, principally seal script, clerical script, regular script, semi-cursive script, and cursive script. Adaptations range from the conservative, as in Korean, which used Chinese characters in their standard form with only a few local coinages, and relatively conservative Japanese, which has coined a few hundred new characters and used traditional character forms until the mid-20th century, to the extensive adaptations of Zhuang and Vietnamese, each coining over 10,000 new characters by Chinese formation principles, to the highly divergent Tangut script, which formed over 5,000 new characters by its own principles.

The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; Chinese: 契丹; pinyin: Qìdān) were a historical nomadic people from East Asia and parts of North Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East.

As a people descended from the proto-Mongols through the Xianbei, Khitans spoke the now-extinct Khitan language, a Para-Mongolic language related to the Mongolic languages. The Khitan people founded and led the Liao dynasty (916–1125), which dominated a vast area of Siberia, Mongolia and Northern China. The Khitans of the Liao dynasty used two independent writing systems for their language: Khitan small script and Khitan large script.

The Jurchen script (Jurchen: [dʒu ʃə bitxə]; Chinese: 女真文) was the writing system used to write the Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in northeastern China in the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan script, which in turn was derived from Chinese (Han characters). The script has only been decoded to a small extent.

The Jurchen script is part of the Chinese family of scripts.

Celestial Empire (Chinese: 天朝; pinyin: Tiāncháo; lit. 'heavenly dynasty') is an archaic name used to refer to China or the Chinese Empire, from a literary and poetic translation of the Chinese term, one of many names for China. The name was used in reference to the status of the Emperor of China as the Son of Heaven in the Sinosphere.

Accordingly, in the 19th century, the name "Celestial" was used to refer to Chinese people. Both terms were widely used in the English-language popular mass media of the day, but fell into disuse later on. Its usage has become popular again in the present day (2015), particularly among Chinese Internet users. It is used to refer to the current Communist regime, to imply either disapproval for its political suppression and arrogance or national pride in the country's emergence as a superpower in the 21st century, depending on the context.

The Khitan small script (Chinese: 契丹小字; pinyin: qìdān xiǎozì) was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language. It was used during the 10th–12th century by the Khitan people, who had created the Liao Empire in present-day northeastern China. In addition to the small script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a functionally independent writing system known as the Khitan large 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.