Nüshu character

It is a syllable sign, not one fixed English word. Nüshu’s representative reading is meng42, a romanized local syllable.

Women in Jiangyong, Hunan, adapted Chinese-character forms to write local speech in letters, poems, songs and wedding letters exchanged by sworn sisters. Because many women had little access to schooling in Chinese writing, Nüshu sustained women’s writing networks. The oldest known object is a coin from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a rebel state (1851–1864), inscribed “women in the world are one family.” One local written account dates to 1931; systematic documentation expanded in the 1980s.