Nüshu character

It represents one sound with several possible word readings.

In Jiangyong dialect, its syllable is romanized cye44. Recorded word correspondences include 靴 (“shoe”), 顺 (“obey”), 射 (“shoot”), 社 (“society”), 舍 (“give up”), and 笋 (“bamboo shoot”). Read the sentence to know which word is meant.

Why did women use Nüshu?

It let women write and sing their local speech together.

Nüshu means “women’s writing.” Women in Jiangyong, southern Hunan, used it to write their local dialect when access to schooling in Chinese Han characters was limited. They exchanged letters with sworn sisters—women who had pledged lasting sisterly ties—sang Nüshu texts, and wrote poems and autobiographies. Brides received “third-day letters,” booklets of poems and good wishes from close female friends, three days after the wedding; women also embroidered Nüshu on cloth and handkerchiefs.

Nüshu forms developed from Chinese Han characters, but they mostly record sound rather than Han-character meaning. The oldest reported artifact is a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom coin (1851–1864), inscribed with the message that women everywhere belong to one family. A 2010 ethnography reports a 1931 county description as the earliest known written reference and notes that the script’s exact beginnings are disputed. Jiangyong started Nüshu workshops in 2003 to bring in new learners and preserve the tradition.