Nuzi: a written language of the women of Jiangyong

Nuzi, or "women's characters", were found in Jiangyong, Central China's Hunan Province in the 1980s and amazed anthropologists around the world.

"Nuzi is the only women's written language found in the world," says Cao Xuequn, a research fellow with the Hunan Provincial Museum. "We have found about 700 nuzi characters."

During the seminar on women's role held in Guiyang of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, Cao gave a speech on the past and present standing of nushu, a special term including the literature and decorative items with nuzi.

Cao says that nuzi was created by and studied among the women of Jiangyong, most of whom had no opportunity for education. Such characters, which have been used in Jiangyong and its neighboring areas for centuries, were not known by men or outsiders.

In the past, women in Jiangyong often studied nuzi after spinning and weaving. They used nuzi to document local stories and write about friendship among women. . . .

Comments

[Ana]

This is a really cool thing. In China when the women joined the husband's family she could communicate secretly with her sisters and others using Nushu. It's passed down from mother to daughter and it's almost lost now. I heard a Christian lecturer talking about it once in the context of 2nd Timothy of all things.

Probably originally developed so they could ask each other, "Does this peasant outfit make my ass look fat?"

[John]

It's nothing new. Spend enough time hanging out with women and it's like they're speaking a foreign language.