Nüshu syllable sign

It marks a local syllable; surrounding text supplies its word.

Its catalog reading is ie21, a spelling that points to its sound. A 2014 review of its encoding records conflicting identifications, so treat it as a sound cue, not a translation.

Why did women write Nüshu?

It let local women write and share their speech.

Women in Jiangyong County, Hunan, China, adapted Chinese characters to record local speech; many had little schooling in written Chinese. Nüshu’s emergence is usually placed in the 19th century. Traditionally, they shared songs, poems, and wedding booklets with friends and relatives, and often sang them together.

The earliest written trace is linked to a Hunan survey in the early 1930s; a possible older clue is a coin from the 1850s that never circulated. China added Nüshu to a list preserving living traditions in 2006.