flâneur

Nüshu: China’s secret female-only language

bbc.com · 1,907 words · saved by 1 readers

Throughout history, women in rural Hunan Province used a coded script to express their most intimate thoughts to one another. Today, this once-“dead” language is making a comeback.

1 October 2020 Andrew LofthouseFeatures correspondent CPA Mediat Pte Ltd/Alamy Nüshu is a women's-only script that was passed down from mothers to their daughters in feudal-society China (Credit: CPA Mediat Pte Ltd/Alamy) Throughout history, women in rural Hunan Province used a coded script to express their most intimate thoughts to one another. Today, this once-“dead” language is making a comeback. China’s south-eastern Hunan province is a dramatic jigsaw puzzle of precipitous sandstone peaks, deeply incised river valleys and fog-shrouded rice paddy fields. Mountains cover more than…

saved by

related reading