 Prior to their conquest of north China and the establishment of the Liao dynasty , the Khitans had no written language . In 920 the first of two Khitan scripts , the Khitan large script , was developed . A second script , the Khitan small script , was developed in 925 . Both scripts are based on the same spoken language , and both contain a mix of logographs and phonographs . Despite the similarities to Chinese characters , the Khitan scripts were functionally different from Chinese . 
