Nüshu character 1B1E5

It writes a syllable; context supplies its meaning.

𛇥 is one sign in Nüshu, a syllabic script used to write the local speech of Jiangyong, Hunan. A sign usually represents a spoken syllable; because different words can share that syllable, the sign alone cannot settle which word is meant. The surrounding line supplies the meaning. Nüshu forms draw on Chinese Han characters, but the script uses its signs mainly for syllables rather than as one-character translations of ideas.

Nüshu developed among rural women in Jiangyong, many with limited access to literacy education. It was passed through family and friendship networks and carried poems, songs, autobiographies, letters between sworn sisters, and sanzhaoshu: cloth-bound “third-day letters” given to a bride three days after her wedding. Women also wrote or embroidered it on paper, fans, handkerchiefs, and clothes.

The earliest known surviving Nüshu artefact is a bronze coin minted during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851–1864); UNESCO identifies a 1933 Hunan survey as the first documentary evidence. Neither date marks the script’s beginning. UNESCO’s account, updated in 2025, describes local efforts to revive and preserve it. Unicode forms this character’s generic label from its code point, so the label identifies the encoded sign instead of giving a translation.