Lars M. asked:
> * Michael Everson
> |
> | Have you seen the really cool new "Not the Roadmap" page? (See
> | http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso10646/ucs-roadmap.html)
>
> Nushu isn't mentioned there. What is the status of that with regard to
> encoding it in Unicode?
It's up in the air.
For those who are wondering, "Nushu" (or "Nu Shu") is the "women's script",
used exclusively among women for many centuries in western Hunan province.
From what I have seen, there is some question whether Nushu should
just be treated as a cipher of the existing Han characters. The
analytic lists seem to consist of lists of glyphs, each equated to
a standard Han character, so it is unclear whether this should not
just be treated as just another style of the Han characters. (Although
its sociological function was obviously quite distinct.) Certainly
there are many old and artistic styles of Han characters, some of
which obscure the form of Han characters even more than Nushu.
Also, Nushu is profoundly moribund at this point. The few remaining
practitioners were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution,
apparently. And serious study wasn't picked up until the 1980's:
"When research began again 30 years later, scholars had difficulty finding
anyone still proficient in the language. A dozen or so women in their
70s and 80s were found who could read nushu, and only three could
write it. Two of those three have since died, leaving Yang Huanyi,
83, the only person in Hunan's Jiangyong county who can still communicate
using the script." -- Tracy Sorenson
http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/en/prod/tv/tv98/075.htm
(for a picture of Yang Huanyi)
http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/back_issues/nushu2.html
(for discussion by Anne E. McLaren, with graphic examples of Nushu)
--Ken
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