A dictionary containing all the 1,800 ancient characters only used and inherited by Chinese women has been published in central China's Hunan Province.
Nüshu, a kind of mysterious writing unique to women, appeared in Hunan's three adjacent counties of Jiangyong, Daoxian and Jianghua and some other areas in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Nüshu was faced with extinction because of lack of use. Zhou Shuoyi, 78, a retiree who worked at the Cultural Bureau in Jiangyong, compiled the unique dictionary after 50 years of study.
"The dictionary acts as an encyclopedia for Nüshu playing an important role in inheriting and studying the characters," said Jiang Hao, dictionary editor.
These gracefully-written rhombic characters are structured by just four kinds of strokes, including dot, horizontal, virgule and arc, and can be spoken in dialect to describe women's misfortunes and inner feelings.
The dictionary has complete stylistic rules and layout with pronunciation, glossary and grammar, and arranged in international phonetic symbol order.
Each Nüshu character is followed by phonetic notation, notes and paraphrase and a corresponding Chinese character and example sentences.
(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2003)
