more on nu shu

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According to Ci Hai (literally meaning "the sea of words), the Chinese
equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, nu shu (pronounced as nv3
shu1) is a system of characters used by women of the Yao nationality in
counties such as Jiangshui and Daoxian in Hunan province. The Yao
nationality is one of the ethnic minorities in China, living primarily in
provinces such as Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan (home to Shangri-La), Guangdong
(with Canton as its capital) and Guizhou.The system was devised to put into
written form the dialect of local Chinese living in the south of Hunan
Province. Its origin hasn't been traced as it was discovered and collected
by outsiders.The characters look like diamonds, slanting from the top on
the right to the bottom on the left. There are more than 600 characters in
the system, half of which originated from Chinese characters, of course,
after many changes.Women used the syllabic language mainly to put into
words their sufferings and feelings.

Hope it helps.

Yongwei Gao
Fudan University,
Shanghai, China