#nüshu

[kenyatta]

Nüshu is a phonetic script read right to left that represents an amalgamation of four local dialects spoken across rural Jiangyong. Each symbol represents a syllable and was written using sharpened bamboo sticks and makeshift ink from the burnt remains left in a wok. Influenced by Chinese characters, its style is traditionally more elongated with curved, threadlike strokes sloping diagonally downwards and was sometimes referred to as “mosquito writing” by locals because of its spindly appearance.

Nüshu provided a way for women to cope with domestic and social hardships and helped to maintain bonds with friends in different villages. Convivial words of friendship and happiness were embroidered in Nüshu on handkerchiefs, headscarves, fans or cotton belts and exchanged. Though Nüshu wasn’t spoken, women at social gatherings sang and chanted songs or poems that varied from nursery rhymes to birthday tributes to personal regrets or marriage complaints using Nüshu phrases and expressions. Older women often composed autobiographical songs to tell their female friends about their miserable experiences or to promote morality and teach other women how to be good wives through chastity, piety and respect.

Though Nüshu is now understood as a means of communication for women who had not been afforded the privileges of reading and writing in Chinese, it was originally believed to be a code of defiance against the highly patriarchal society of the time. Historically, it was not socially acceptable for Chinese women to openly talk about personal regrets, the hardships of agricultural life or feelings of sadness and grief. Nüshu provided an outlet for the women and helped to create a bond of female friendship and support that was of great importance in a male-dominated society.

[linguistcaly]

Welcome back to me writing unorthodox sentences in foreign scripts.

Day five - Nüshu

[mottelotte]

Nüshu is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in Jiangyong Prefecture, Hunan Province, China.

As a Nüshu practitioner once said, “Men have their script, books and texts; they are men of honour. We have our own script, books and texts; we are women of honour.”

“Women used their own script to tell stories, to comfort each other, to sing out sorrow and to express admiration. In the process, a paradise was built,” says Zhao. “Tianguang (heavenly light) is a word that often occurs in Nüshu works.” Nüshu practitioners found comfort in this word, which could guide them through all their sorrows and difficulties to a better life.

[ashotasfireandasdeepastheocean1]

...always learning 💕

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Nüshu (literally “women’s writing” in Chinese) is a syllabic script created and used exclusively by women in the Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China. Up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) women were forbidden access to formal education, and so Nüshu was developed in secrecy as a means to communicate. Since its discovery in 1982, Nüshu remains to be the only gender-specific writing system in the world. Read more here.

[drafty-castle]

Nüshu writing system is a written language designed for women by women passed down through generations for hundreds of years in China. It’s the only one of its kind. I’m definitely going to be looking more into this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nüshu

[covenawhite66]

1. Ge’ez Script

Ge’ez language is now generally only used as a liturgical language for Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Ge’ez script is used in Amharic, Tigrinya, Bilen, etc.

The Ge’ez script is an alphasyllabic writing system. The syllabary today has 26 consonantal letters with several forms vowel are diacritic marks fused to the letter.

2. Quipu

Incan Empire quipus were recording devices made from string. They were used to record mainly numerical data, such as taxes, census numbers, and calendrical information

These data were recorded onto the string in a series of knots of different types, each denoting different numbers.

3. Tengwar

J.R.R Tolkien writing systems created by J.R.R Tolkien an avid linguist who added his expertise in the field to his creative works of fiction.

One of several writing systems for the languages used in Middle Earth.

4. Rongorongo

Found on Rapa Nui AKA Easter Island. Rongorongo is a series of glyphs about which we know virtually nothing.

5. Sinhala Script

Used by the Sri Lankans to write the Sinhalese language, as well as the holy languages of Pali and Sanskrit, the Sinhala script is easily one of the most beautiful scripts in the world. It is used by the 16 million Sinhala speakers of Sri Lanka.

The Sinhala script is a syllabary and is written from left to right.

6. Classical Mongolian Script

This writing system enjoyed prominence throughout Mongolia for over 700 years until it was supplanted by the Cyrillic script, a result of being within the Soviet sphere of influence.

Invented by a Uyghur scribe by the name of Tata-Tongoone. Classical Mongolian of the few systems to be written vertically and left to right instead of right to left.

7. Nüshu

Used in Jiangyong County in Hunan Province in Southern China. Because of strict laws of patriarchal Confucianism that forbade women from doing many things.Women invented a writing system that they could claim as their own and as a way of rebelling against the patriarchal system

Nüshu was born and was used for writing personal diaries and letters between close female friends. It has 600 to 700 symbols represent a phonetic syllable.

[spiceupyourfcknife]

I love how girls and language are so intertwined, we all know and love how teenage girls literally are always the ones leading language innovation, but I really love the language NüShu.

It’s a language from Jiangyong county in china in the 19th century that women made amongst themselves. Bc of feudal society at the time women didn’t have freedom of expression and they passed this language down from mother to daughter and friends would talk to each other in it, it’s know for its delicate fine scripts, they’d sing what they wanted to say to each other and put it in poems, it’s such a beautiful and creative way to get around such harsh limitation. Especially the fact it’s written as well and women were denied education.. idk I just like love it

[transgenderer]

Before 1949, Jiangyong County operated under an agrarian economy and women had to abide by patriarchal Confucian practices such as the Three Obediences. Women were confined to the home (through foot binding) and were assigned roles in housework and needlework instead of fieldwork, which allowed the practice of Nüshu to develop. Specifically, unmarried women, also known as "upstairs girls," oftentimes gathered in groups in upstairs chambers to embroider and sing. The practice of singing Nüge (women's song) allowed young women to learn Nüshu.[5][6]

It is not known when Nüshu came into being. The difficulty in dating Nüshu is due to local customs of burning or burying Nüshu texts with their owners and the difficulty in textiles and paper surviving in humid environments.[5][6] However, many of the simplifications found in Nüshu had been in informal use in standard Chinese since the Song and Yuan dynasty (13th–14th century). It seems to have reached its peak during the latter part of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).[2]

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.[citation needed], and also during China's Cultural Revolution (1966–76).[4] The last original writers of the script died in the 1990s (the last one in 2004).

[nesepalamudu]

salı gününü bitirdik perşembe öğleye kadar teslimim var yarın inanılmaz iyi bi şekilde ödevi yazmayı tamamlamam gerekiyor ve işin kötü yanı iki tane görüşmeyi daha yazıya geçiremedim. perşembe işimiz bitmiyor çünkü cumaya da social theory finalimi yüklemem gerekiyor ama onun teslimi cuma gecesi bakalım inşallah yeterli olur. orada da bitmiyor çünkü nitel ödevini daha hiç yazmaya bile başlamadım ama vizeye 95 girmiş hoca, o biraz rahatlattı, yine de hangi gün teslim etmemiz gerektiğine dair kimsenin fikri yok hocaya ulaşılamıyor. haftaya cumaya da gender ödevimin teslimi var onu da artık haftaya bıraktım hapharika nüshu makaleleri okuyacağım hatta belgesel de izleme planım var çünkü neden olmasın. bu haftayı atlatırsam inşallah haftaya daha kolay olacak. bugünü de bitiriyorum ders anlamında, bi bölüm enchanté izleyip elveda diyelim

[aytvill]

For centuries in China, the once-secret written #language of Nüshu was calligraphed on folded fans and handkerchiefs as hidden letters so women could share stories and express #solidarity in a repressive era when many #women were denied #literacy. Confronting patriarchy, two modern women find solace in Nüshu, rediscovering connections between traditional Chinese #womanhood and contemporary #feminism.

[pikasus-artenews]

ALESSANDRO CARDINALE. Nüshu – Writing the Void

La mostra presenta opere di Alessandro Cardinale ispirate ai territori dello Hunan, alle donne yao e alla loro scrittura ermetica Nu Shu

[adriana-redactora]

Nüshu

[folksaintsindex]

St. Yang Huanyi, sworn sister & terminal writer of Nüshu