Nüshu Syllable I21

It marks the Jiangyong syllable i21, not one fixed word.

Unicode’s Nüshu data gives this sign the reading i21. In Jiangyong speech, the i21 homophones—different words pronounced alike—can be written in Chinese as 既 (“already”), 意 (“meaning” or “intention”), 以 (“by means of”), or 已 (“already”). The sentence tells you which word is meant.

Why did women use Nüshu?

It let women write local Jiangyong speech for one another.

Nüshu (“women’s writing”) is a syllabic script shaped from Chinese Han characters. Women in Jiangyong County, Hunan, used it for letters, biographies, songs and third-day wedding messages—notes friends gave a bride three days after the wedding. It offered a way to record local speech to women who often could not write Han characters.

A surviving Nüshu coin from 1851–64 is among the earliest examples; written descriptions appeared in the 1930s. Scholars disagree on when the script began and how its forms developed. By the late 20th century, very few fluent users remained; in 2025, revival and preservation work was ongoing.