There are many legends about the emergence of Nvshu: Hu's word-making theory, ingenious word-making theory, nine-Jin girl's word-making theory, and the legend that a female red becomes a female character. The protagonists in these legends are all beautiful and intelligent girls, who create words with wisdom and have a strong romantic color. Scholars have put forward many opinions on the time when "Nvshu" came into being, and think that the time when "Nvshu" came into being is probably not earlier than the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. "Nvshu" is a kind of inheritance and evolution of ancient Chinese characters in Shang Dynasty, which is closely related to Oracle Bone Inscriptions. "Nvshu" comes down in one continuous line with the prehistoric cultural depiction symbols in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins. Nvshu is a kind of writing among the ancient ethnic minorities in the Yangtze River valley, which records the local Yao language. It may be that Yao women created women's books.
Nvshu mainly appeared in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province, which is a region with unique historical geography and humanistic environment. Located in a remote and closed area, however, due to the dangerous terrain, it has always been a battleground for military strategists and an important channel for north-south operations. It is a combination of ancient Yue culture and Chu culture. The integration of Yao nationality and Han nationality not only retains the customs and habits of Yao nationality, but also has a strong Confucian tradition in the Central Plains. There is a traditional way of life in which men plow and women weave, the idea of giving preference to boys, and the remnants of the original marriage custom of marrying a husband's family and a brother. There are not only traces of matriarchal clan society, but also the economic culture of hunting and fishing of Yao nationality. Women also have their own special festivals, such as the Bull Running Festival on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, the temple fair in May, the cool blowing festival in midsummer and the begging festival in July. Women also have unique customs, such as becoming sisters, recognizing the old and rejuvenating, quarreling in karaoke bars, noisy karaoke bars, sitting on the floor in karaoke bars, crying and marrying, etc. The appearance of Nvshu in Jiangyong is not only due to historical geography and humanistic environment, but also related to its unique customs and habits, that is, it is internally related to the phenomenon of "daughter country". Women in Jiangyong area were locked in boudoir as bridesmaids before marriage, and they were called "upstairs girls". I can't live with my husband when I go back to my mother's house three days after marriage. After giving birth, I can only spin and weave at home when I go to my husband's house. Many times when communicating with women, the feelings between female partners are deep, even exceeding the feelings for their husbands. There is a local saying that "sisters don't tell lies in front of their husbands, and they don't tell the truth in front of their husbands". In such a female society that is relatively isolated from the male society, it is not surprising that women's books appear.
The historical, geographical and humanistic environment in which Nvshu came into being is unique, and its symbolic form, recorded content and social function are also unique.
Nvshu has about 1000 basic words, of which about 600 are most commonly used. The font of Nvshu is rhombic, with low left and high right, slightly inclined and balanced inclination, with the highest point in the upper right corner and the lowest point in the lower left corner. It pays from top to bottom and from right to left. Its strokes are slender, slender, beautiful and neatly arranged. There are five basic strokes: left arc, right arc, left oblique, right oblique, dot and vertical. Local women call this kind of writing "long-legged mosquito" or "ant". Broadly speaking, women's books include words, works written in words and articles written in such words. There are four kinds of articles that convey and record women's books-books, papers, fans and towels, which are called women's books, papers, fans and towels respectively. Women's calligraphy works, mainly rhyme, are rare. All chapters have no titles, no punctuation, no chapters or paragraphs, and a book comes to the end. When singing, pitch, strength and pause are all used to form the rhythm of poetry. From the genre point of view, there are letters, lyric poems, narrative poems, invitations, crying wedding songs, ballads, children's songs, riddles, prayer poems and songbooks (translated and rewritten China's works). Rich in content, some recorded their bitter life experiences and revealed their struggle with fate, such as Yi Nianhua's autobiography and Yang's private prosecution; Some praise pure friendship, some miss the carefree life of girlhood, and some confide that sisters don't hate each other, such as "I don't know my sister, my sister is crying in the cold building." ..... get up early in the morning and worry about it. If you want to go, don't go far "; There are also those who cry that their mother-in-law is abusive and their husbands are violent. For example, "My husband keeps gambling and there are tables left on the gambling table. "... the upper body is broken and the lower body is bloody"; There are also records about the cruelty of war, strange customs of love and marriage, prayers and sacrifices ... All in all, women's books comprehensively reflect many aspects of life scenes such as marriage and family, productive labor, culture and entertainment, needlework art, customs and habits, and sacrificial epics. And they are all women's bitter poems and history of blood and tears.
Nvshu works are sung in the local dialect, which is original and comes from working people. They used various rhetorical devices flexibly, which fully and truly reflected their spiritual world. For example, make good use of metaphors to express emotions vividly. For example, in the book of the Three Dynasties, "Women are luckier than birds, with good health and long hair, and each flies separately", which simply expresses good wishes to her companions; Intentionally or unintentionally, it is a metaphor to conform to nature, such as "Young Bamboo by the River": "Young bamboo by the river is green, and I don't know the sky at the age of three"; Clever use of antithesis, neat form, clear rhythm, such as: "bright colors return with uneasy hearts, fish die by the river without closing their eyes"; Clever use of exaggeration makes the whole work vivid, such as Crying Day and Night, When to Adopt a Daughter; In addition, there are artistic techniques such as truthfulness and going back and forth, which make women's calligraphy works reveal liveliness in simplicity. Jiangyong women make friends with books, express their feelings with books, make friends with books, express their feelings with books, and express their feelings with books. Women's books have become an endless spiritual river in their emotional world.
Jiangyong Nvshu presents the unique life scene and emotional world of women through unique symbols and forms. Through the writing and telling of women's books, the life world is reflected from the perspective of women; Through the dissemination and entertainment of women's books, express their true feelings. Through the life world and emotional world reflected in women's books, we can see the subjective consciousness of Jiangyong women in the life and emotional world, which is the most direct material for us to understand the cultural psychology and regional culture of ancient women.
However, there are three main reasons why Jiangyong women's books are on the verge of extinction: First, Jiangyong area is rainy and humid, and the housing conditions are poor, so women's books will not be preserved for a long time. Secondly, due to traditional customs, most of the works of Nvshu were burned with the dead. They want to take them to the underworld to continue reading and writing, and they don't want the secrets recorded in women's books to be known by others, or some women burn some of them after their husbands die to show their loyalty. At the same time, due to insufficient attention and ineffective protection measures in the past, some works of "Nvshu" were destroyed. Third, there are not many Jiangyong women who can write women's books now. The natural descendants of Nvshu died one after another, and there were few left. The last natural descendant, Yang, died in 2004. There are no classrooms, no textbooks and no special teachers. Only through family preaching and mother-child learning, through singing hall, bullfighting, chasing the Three Dynasties, blowing cool festivals and other activities, the number of local female books is decreasing, and the social adaptability of female books is weakened by Chinese character learning.
For the above reasons, women's books are in danger of extinction. In addition, driven by commercial interests, some people churn out women's books and invent them subjectively, which also makes the only remaining women's books lose their originality and authenticity.
Nvshu is not only Jiang Yong's, but also the world's; Not only for women, but also for human beings. The value of women's books has aroused the concern of the whole society. Experts and scholars conducted in-depth investigation and study, preserved the original appearance of women's books and recorded women's songs, held academic seminars on women's books, and established museums, exhibition halls and archives. The government funds to train female calligraphy inheritors and protect local female calligraphy creation; Learn to vigorously report and publicize women's books, create women's book culture, and create women's book tourism brands. The only women's book in the world, Jiangyong Women's Book, is like a wild rose with great vitality. It leaves us with many questions and thoughts, and also needs our more attention and protection.