Nüshu: Chinese women’s characters

Abstract

Peasant women in the Xiaojiang River valley of Hunan Province have used Nushu 'women's script' to write their regional dialect since the Song Dynasty or earlier. A description of the phonological features of the dialect is followed by analysis of the structural characteristics of the script, which in its current form is a systematic variant of square Chinese characters. Unlike the latter, however, Nushu's thousand-plus characters are syllabic. Its inclusion of characters and character components to represent groups of phonetically similar morphemes places it at a typologically intermediate stage between Chinese characters and Japanese kana. The visual aspect of many Nushu characters is related to women's weaving, embroidery, and paper cutting, thus reflecting the script's social role, in which women who have gathered to do needlework sing Nushu poem texts expressing their celebrations and sufferings. Nushu is also traditionally used by married women writing to their female relatives. This unique script is regrettably on the verge of extinction.