Nüshu sign for fang44

It marks the Jiangyong syllable fang44. The Nüshu reading fang44 uses trailing digits to mark tone. The Unicode Nüshu list pairs 𛆠 with Han characters—the square forms used in standard Chinese writing—including 方, 芳, 风, 封, 丰, 妨, 逢, 凤, 番, and 翻. The sentence tells you which word fits.

Why did Jiangyong women use Nüshu?

It gave them a way to write and sing local speech. Many women had little access to formal literacy in Chinese characters. In the traditional practice, they sang Nüshu texts and wrote life histories, letters between sworn sisters, and cloth-bound wedding books delivered to brides by female friends and relatives three days after marriage. Nüshu's elongated forms developed from Han-character shapes. Its oldest known object is a coin from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851–1864), bearing a message that women everywhere belonged to one family; the first definite written record dates to 1931. A 2018 UNESCO account describes preservation work giving the script a public heritage role.

Was Nüshu a secret code?

No; it writes local Jiangyong speech. When outsiders noticed Nüshu in the 1980s, some media sensationalized it as a secret language. Men could understand the speech when Nüshu was read aloud, even though women mainly learned and used the writing among themselves.