Nü Shu
Encyclopedia
Nüshu is a syllabic script
, a simplification of Chinese character
s that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County
in Hunan
province of southern China
.
') that is spoken by the people of the Xiao
and Yongming River region of northern Jiangyong County, Hunan. This dialect, which is unintelligible with the Xiang Chinese dialect of southern Jiangyong and other parts of Hunan, is known to its speakers as [tifɯə] "Dong language", and it is only written in the Nüshu script. There are differing opinions on the classification of Xiangnan Tuhua, as it has features of several different Chinese languages, with some scholars classifying it under Yue Chinese and other scholars considering it a hybrid dialect. In addition to speaking Tuhua, most local people in Jiangyong are bilingual in the Hunan dialect of Southwestern Mandarin
, which they use for communication with people from outside the area that Tuhua is spoken, as well as for some formal occasions. If Hunan Southwestern Mandarin is written, then it is always written using standard Chinese characters, and not with the Nüshu script.
Jiangyong County has a mixed population of Han Chinese
and Yao people
, but Nüshu is only used to write the local Chinese dialect, and there are no known examples of the script being used to write the local Yao language.
and Yuan
dynasty (13th - 14th century). It seems to have reached its peak during the latter part of the Qing Dynasty
(1644–1911).
[The Jiangyong woman who visited Beijing and police encountered her writing in Nüshu predates 1983.] Though a local educated worker at the Jiangyong Cultural Office (Zhou Shuoyi) had collected, studied and translated many Nüshu texts into standard Chinese, he was unable to draw outside attention to the script before outside scholars came upon it 1983, when a report was submitted to the central government.
During the latter part of the 20th century, owing more to wider social, cultural and political changes than the narrow fact of greater access to hanzi literacy, younger girls and women stopped learning Nüshu, and it began falling into disuse, as older users died. The script was suppressed by the Japanese during their invasion of China in the 1930s-40s, because they feared that the Chinese could use it to send secret messages., and also during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The last original writers of the script died in the 1990s (the last one in 2004). It is no longer customary for women to learn Nüshu, and literacy in Nüshu is now limited to a few scholars who learned it from the last women who were literate in it. However, after Yang Yueqing made a documentary about Nüshu, the government of the People's Republic of China
started to popularize the effort to preserve the increasingly endangered script, and some younger women are beginning to learn it.
, which is logographic
(with each character
representing a word or part of a word), Nüshu is phonetic, with each of its approximately 600-700 characters representing a syllable
. This is about half the number required to represent all the syllables in Tuhua, as tonal distinctions are frequently ignored, making it "the most revolutionary and thorough simplification of Chinese characters ever attempted". Zhou Shuoyi, the only male to have mastered the script, compiled a dictionary listing 1,800 variant characters and allographs.
Nüshu characters are an italic
variant form of Kaishu Chinese characters, as can be seen in the name of the script, though some have been substantially modified to better fit embroidery
patterns. The strokes of the characters are in the form of dots, horizontals, virgules, and arcs. The script is written from top to bottom or, when horizontal, from right to left, as is traditional for Chinese. Also like standard Chinese, vertical lines are truly vertical, while lines crossing them are angled from the perpendicular. Unlike Chinese, Nüshu writers value characters written with very fine, almost threadlike, lines as a mark of fine penmanship.
About half of Nüshu is modified Chinese characters used logographically. In about 100, the entire character is adopted without little change apart from skewing the frame from square to rhomboid
, sometimes reversing them (mirror image), and often reducing the number of strokes. Another hundred have been modified in their strokes, but are still easily recognizable, as is nü 'woman' above. About 200 have been greatly modified, but traces of the original Chinese character are still discernable.
The rest of the characters are phonetic. They are either modified characters, as above, or elements extracted from characters. There are used for 130 phonetic values, each used to write on average ten homophonous or nearly homophonous words, though there are allographs as well; women differed on which Chinese character they preferred for a particular phonetic value.
Other works, including poems and lyrics, were handwoven into belts and straps, or embroidered onto everyday items and clothing.
Yang Huanyi (traditional Chinese: 陽煥宜; simplified Chinese: 阳焕宜), an inhabitant of Jiangyong county, Hunan province and the last person proficient in this writing system, died on September 20, 2004, age 98.
The language and locale have attracted foreign investment with money from Hong Kong
building up infrastructure at possible tourist sites and a $209,000 grant from the Ford Foundation
to build a Nüshu museum scheduled to open in 2007. However, with the line of transmission now broken, there are fears that the features of the script are being distorted by the effort of marketing it for the tourist industry.
Lisa See
describes the use of Nüshu among 19th century women in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
.
Nüshu is currently under proposal for encoding in Unicode
, in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane, with 385 basic characters from U+1B000 to U+1B180, and 64 allographs from U+1B181 to U+1B1C1.
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
, a simplification of Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County
Jiangyong County
Jiangyong County is a county located in the southwestern part of the prefecture of Yongzhou in Hunan province, China. Nüshu is a local script understood only by women in Jiangyong County....
in Hunan
Hunan
' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...
province of southern China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Language
The Nüshu script is used to write a local dialect of Chinese known as Xiangnan Tuhua (湘南土话, 'Southern Hunanese TuhuaTuhua
Tuhua can mean:*Various rural dialects and languages in China, such as Shaozhou Tuhua or Naxi language *Mayor Island / Tuhua in New Zealand-External links:*...
') that is spoken by the people of the Xiao
Xiao River
Xiao River is a river of China, and tributary to the Xiang River. It is part of the East China Sea basin....
and Yongming River region of northern Jiangyong County, Hunan. This dialect, which is unintelligible with the Xiang Chinese dialect of southern Jiangyong and other parts of Hunan, is known to its speakers as [tifɯə] "Dong language", and it is only written in the Nüshu script. There are differing opinions on the classification of Xiangnan Tuhua, as it has features of several different Chinese languages, with some scholars classifying it under Yue Chinese and other scholars considering it a hybrid dialect. In addition to speaking Tuhua, most local people in Jiangyong are bilingual in the Hunan dialect of Southwestern Mandarin
Southwestern Mandarin
Southwestern Mandarin , also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin , is a primary branch of Mandarin Chinese spoken by Han Chinese people throughout many regions of central and southwestern China, such as Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the western part of Hunan, the northern...
, which they use for communication with people from outside the area that Tuhua is spoken, as well as for some formal occasions. If Hunan Southwestern Mandarin is written, then it is always written using standard Chinese characters, and not with the Nüshu script.
Jiangyong County has a mixed population of Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
and Yao people
Yao people
The Yao nationality is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south...
, but Nüshu is only used to write the local Chinese dialect, and there are no known examples of the script being used to write the local Yao language.
History
In the sex-segregated world of traditional China, girls and women did not have the same access to literacy as boys and men, though throughout China's history, there were always women who could read and write; by late imperial times, women's poetry became a matter of considerable family pride in elite circles. Most people—male or female—were illiterate. Reforms of the early 20th century, which popularized education and promulgated a writing style reflective of speech (baihuawen) to replace the arcane literary style (wenyanwen), increased literacy rates for both males and females. It is not known when or how Nüshu came into being, but, because it is clearly based in the standard Chinese script, hanzi, Nüshu could not have been created before standardization of hanzi (circa 900). Many of the simplifications found in Nüshu have been in informal use in standard Chinese since the SongSong Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
and Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
dynasty (13th - 14th century). It seems to have reached its peak during the latter part of the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
(1644–1911).
[The Jiangyong woman who visited Beijing and police encountered her writing in Nüshu predates 1983.] Though a local educated worker at the Jiangyong Cultural Office (Zhou Shuoyi) had collected, studied and translated many Nüshu texts into standard Chinese, he was unable to draw outside attention to the script before outside scholars came upon it 1983, when a report was submitted to the central government.
During the latter part of the 20th century, owing more to wider social, cultural and political changes than the narrow fact of greater access to hanzi literacy, younger girls and women stopped learning Nüshu, and it began falling into disuse, as older users died. The script was suppressed by the Japanese during their invasion of China in the 1930s-40s, because they feared that the Chinese could use it to send secret messages., and also during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The last original writers of the script died in the 1990s (the last one in 2004). It is no longer customary for women to learn Nüshu, and literacy in Nüshu is now limited to a few scholars who learned it from the last women who were literate in it. However, after Yang Yueqing made a documentary about Nüshu, the government of the People's Republic of China
Government of the People's Republic of China
All power within the government of the People's Republic of China is divided among three bodies: the People's Republic of China, State Council, and the People's Liberation Army . This article is concerned with the formal structure of the state, its departments and their responsibilities...
started to popularize the effort to preserve the increasingly endangered script, and some younger women are beginning to learn it.
Features
Unlike the standard written ChineseChinese written language
Written Chinese comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language, and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary...
, which is logographic
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
(with each character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
representing a word or part of a word), Nüshu is phonetic, with each of its approximately 600-700 characters representing a syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
. This is about half the number required to represent all the syllables in Tuhua, as tonal distinctions are frequently ignored, making it "the most revolutionary and thorough simplification of Chinese characters ever attempted". Zhou Shuoyi, the only male to have mastered the script, compiled a dictionary listing 1,800 variant characters and allographs.
Nüshu characters are an italic
Italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive typeface based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, such typefaces often slant slightly to the right. Different glyph shapes from roman type are also usually used—another influence from calligraphy...
variant form of Kaishu Chinese characters, as can be seen in the name of the script, though some have been substantially modified to better fit embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
patterns. The strokes of the characters are in the form of dots, horizontals, virgules, and arcs. The script is written from top to bottom or, when horizontal, from right to left, as is traditional for Chinese. Also like standard Chinese, vertical lines are truly vertical, while lines crossing them are angled from the perpendicular. Unlike Chinese, Nüshu writers value characters written with very fine, almost threadlike, lines as a mark of fine penmanship.
About half of Nüshu is modified Chinese characters used logographically. In about 100, the entire character is adopted without little change apart from skewing the frame from square to rhomboid
Rhomboid
Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are oblique.A parallelogram with sides of equal length is a rhombus but not a rhomboid....
, sometimes reversing them (mirror image), and often reducing the number of strokes. Another hundred have been modified in their strokes, but are still easily recognizable, as is nü 'woman' above. About 200 have been greatly modified, but traces of the original Chinese character are still discernable.
The rest of the characters are phonetic. They are either modified characters, as above, or elements extracted from characters. There are used for 130 phonetic values, each used to write on average ten homophonous or nearly homophonous words, though there are allographs as well; women differed on which Chinese character they preferred for a particular phonetic value.
Nüshu works
A large number of the Nüshu works were "third day missives" (三朝書). They were cloth bound booklets created by "sworn sisters" (結拜姊妹) and mothers and given to their counterpart "sworn sisters" or daughters upon their marriage. They wrote down songs in Nüshu, which were delivered on the third day after the young woman's marriage. This way, they expressed their hopes for the happiness of the young woman who had left the village to be married and their sorrow for being parted from her.Other works, including poems and lyrics, were handwoven into belts and straps, or embroidered onto everyday items and clothing.
Recent years
The language and locale have attracted foreign investment with money from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
building up infrastructure at possible tourist sites and a $209,000 grant from the Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
to build a Nüshu museum scheduled to open in 2007. However, with the line of transmission now broken, there are fears that the features of the script are being distorted by the effort of marketing it for the tourist industry.
Lisa See
Lisa See
Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her Chinese-American family has had a great impact on her life and work. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family and the novels Flower Net , The Interior , Dragon Bones , Snow Flower and the...
describes the use of Nüshu among 19th century women in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a 2005 novel by Lisa See set in nineteenth century China. In her introduction to the novel, See writes that Lily, the narrator, was born in 1823 — "the third year of Emperor Daoguang's reign". The novel begins in 1903, when Lily is 80 years old...
.
Nüshu is currently under proposal for encoding in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane, with 385 basic characters from U+1B000 to U+1B180, and 64 allographs from U+1B181 to U+1B1C1.
See also
- Compare with hiraganaHiraganais a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
, a phonetic writing of JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
used initially exclusively by women, that wrote such major works as The Tale of GenjiThe Tale of Genjiis a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...
. - LáadanLáadanLáadan is a constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better...
, an engineered languageEngineered languageEngineered languages are constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypotheses about how languages work or might work. There are at least three subcategories, philosophical languages , logical languages , and experimental languages...
created to better express women's modes of expression - Language and gender
External links
- http://cathysilber.wordpress.com/ Selections from Writing from the Useless Branch, by Cathy Silber
- Nüshu texts (in Chinese)
- Much ado about Nushu, by Laura Miller, 2004 Invited contribution to the weblog Keywords.oxusnet.net
- World of Nushu: a detailed history of Nüshu and numerous illustrations.
- 6-paragraph article of AncientScripts.com
- Details of Nüshu at Omniglot.com
- A documentary about Nüshu on CCTV website
- An audio interview with journalist and culturalist Lisa See on her research of Nüshu
- The secrets of nu-shu, article by Lisa SeeLisa SeeLisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her Chinese-American family has had a great impact on her life and work. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family and the novels Flower Net , The Interior , Dragon Bones , Snow Flower and the...
- The forbidden tongue (article in The Guardian)
- Chinese women lost for words (article in The Guardian)
- Simple arrangement of an unidentified Nüshu song in MIDI format (explanatory notes are mid-way down this page)
- Nüshu dictionary