Here's an article from xinhuanet.com about the Nushu script.
China's archive keepers said Monday that they would reveal the mysterious Nushu, probably the world's only female specific language, to the public at an exhibition scheduled for late April.
Nushu, a language that was incomprehensible to men, was used exclusively by women in central Hunan province and some areas in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said Liu Gening,head of the provincial archive.
The language was used widely in the three adjacent counties of Jiangyong, Daoxian and Jianghua, but was on the verge of extinction today for lack of use, he said. "Only elderly women in some rural areas still use it now."
To preserve the language, Liu and his colleagues have collected handkerchiefs, aprons, scarves and handbags embroidered with Nushu characters, manuscripts written on paper or fans, and calligraphic works by Zhou Shuoyi, the first man to learn the language in China.
"We have collected 303 pieces of heritage bearing the rare language during five trips to Yongjiang county, birthplace of the female language, over the past year," said Liu. "The oldest of them dates back to the late Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s, and the most recent pieces were from the 1960s or 1970s." [continue]
Related:
Nushu - ancientscripts.com
Nushu - wikipedia
A language by women, for women -msnbc.msn.com
Also see Languagehat's post on Nishu, and the links provided there.
Posted on March 15, 2004 08:46 PM. Filed under: language.