Nüshu character tsi5

It writes the Jiangyong syllable tsi5, not one fixed word.

Nüshu signs usually write syllables of the local Chinese dialect spoken in Jiangyong County, Hunan, China. The Roman-letter spelling tsi5 guides pronunciation; one syllable can stand for several words with the same local sound, so surrounding text settles the meaning.

Women used Nüshu for songs, stories, and friendship.

Women in Jiangyong County, Hunan, developed Nüshu to write local speech at a time when many could not write Chinese characters. They wrote poems, songs, and life stories on paper and fans, and embroidered writing on clothes and handkerchiefs.

The earliest known object is a bronze coin minted by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a rebel state in China, in 1851–64; its inscription presents all women as one family. In traditional practice, cloth-bound San Chao Shu (“Three-Day Books”) collected poems and songs and passed from one sworn sister (a woman joined to another in a sisterhood) to another when one married. As women's access to mainstream schooling widened, Nüshu use declined; by 2007, workshops, heritage listings, and a local museum had made preservation a public project.