The ancient kingdom of Xixia (西夏) came together from the clans of the Tangut tribe, a nomadic nation of northwestern China, under the leadership of the first Xixia emperor Li Deming. His son, Li Yuanhao, greatly expanded the empire,

The Tangut language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman subgroup within the larger Sino-Tibetan family. Even though little of its phonology has been reconstructured, it can be determined that it was primarily a tonal, monosyllabic language.