It used to be that if you were a newly married woman in Jiangyong County in China (or in any part of China for that matter), you had to live in conditions of extreme oppression based on gender. Bound feet, forced child marriages, barriers to education, and immense subjugation from both husband and mother-in-law was the norm. But what was special about living in Jiangyong County was that while other women in the surrounding counties were illiterate and had lost virtually all contact with their natal families after marriage, the women of Jiangyong County still had the ability to communicate with other women using a system of writing called "Nushu."

As such, Nushu, literally meaning "women's script," was not only an integral outlet of expression for the women living in Jiangyong County, but was for centuries the only single-sex language in the world.

Professor Orie Endo, who has followed Nushu and its unique role in the lives of Jiangyong women for more than a decade, gave a lecture about her research last Friday in the Robinson Room of Miller Library. Her research is a culmination of multiple trips to the Chinese countryside, oral histories from original transmitters and their surviving relatives, and a faithful collection of artifacts that preserve the Nushu writings.

The effort to preserve Nushu writings has emerged because this language--the language that connected the Jiangyong women to each other after marriage and was a source of solace in their sufferings--is now dead. Yang Huanyi was the last fluent transmitter of Nushu, and her death in 2004 marked the end of what was perhaps the only single-sex language in the world.

According to Endo, the script was created in the isolated mountain villages of Jiangyong County in Hunan Province, "a region where the Han and Yao ethnic traditions fused." The Han were a sober and industrious people who valued the written language, while the Yao were known for their fun-loving, jovial lifestyle of singing and dancing. Endo believes that the combined respect for writing and love for the arts set the foundation for the creation of Nushu.

The script's characteristics seem to support Endo's theory. It is more stylized and abstract compared to the standard written form of Chinese, and the characters are formed using thin, wispy lines that slant upwards. Also, Nushu is often found in embroidered form and easily lends itself to the art, suggesting that the script was modeled after patterns that women used in their embroidery work.

There is another piece to this story. In Jiangyong County the fertile soil guaranteed good harvests, which allowed men to work in the fields without the help of their wives. As a result, distinct gender roles existed, defining the work of men and women in the region. In contrast to men, women were expected to stay in their homes and develop their embroidery skills, especially for the embroidery that would be stitched onto slippers for their tiny, bound feet. A woman who possessed fine embroidery skills achieved high status in Chinese society, and so the women frequently worked amongst each other to cultivate the art. In the process, they also formed close bonds of friendship.

Yet the friendships that were formed were quite different from ordinary friendships. As the tradition in this county had it, female friends moved in with a bride-to-be for the month before her marriage to keep her company, and during this time, pledged a "sworn sisterhood." Then, on the third day after the wedding, the women of the sisterhood sent the bride a handmade book called the Sanchao Shu (Third-Day Missives), and through Nushu were able to express feelings of congratulations on the marriage, but also feelings of great sorrow at her departure.

Being in the sisterhood meant that the women would maintain their bonds even after marriage and departure from the home village through writing letters. Oftentimes, these letters would contain classic tales and poems from the Tang Dynasty, folk songs, and even depictions of how their lives were affected by national events occurring in China. For example, one woman that Endo interviewed recalled that anti-Japanese songs composed and written down by women in World War II were included in letters to sworn sisters. In this way, Nushu was not only an outlet for expressing self-pity, but also conveyed the voices of people witnessing history.

It should be noted, however, that although the script was only utilized and understood by women, it was in no way a "secret" script, as much as it was a "private" one. Men in the county were simply not interested in learning it, perhaps because they already had better access to education where they could learn the standard script and thought of Nushu to be little more than petty women's folly. Yet the incredible liberalization and unifying impact that the script had on women is unmistakable, as the practice of teaching and learning from generation to generation of women was been sustained for centuries.

The presentation on Nushu was made possible by a grant awarded to the Department of East Asian Studies from the Freeman Foundation's Cultural Events Fund. The lecture, in conjunction with a display of Nushu artifacts from Professor Endo's own collection, was organized by Professors, Hideko Abe and Ankeney Weitz, with assistance from students, Jia Zheng '10, Brynn Bernheimer '12, and Anne Marie Burke '13.

"The women who wrote these letters, autobiographies, and books were uneducated peasants [with] a desire to communicate with loved ones that was so strong that they developed a written language." Professor Weitz said. "These women had the same needs [as men], and they fulfilled them despite all the barriers that dictated against literacy."

Scholars, local government officials, and the people in China have only recently realized the cultural significance behind Nushu. Efforts to relearn the written script have popped up, and so despite the death of the language in its ordinary use, prospects that Nushu will live on in memory and in legacy look bright.