The Secret Language of Chinese Women

When I was a student, I remember reading about a secret language known only to Chinese women. I lost that article, and for many years, every time I brought it up in conversation, people would look at me strangely. No one had heard of anything like this — that the women of a society would have their own language which their menfolk knew nothing about. What more they had managed to keep this language a secret for a few hundred years.

I had almost forgotten about it, when last year, browsing through a bookstore, I came across the book Snowflower and the Secret Fan. It sounded sort of fairy-tale like (not my kind of book), so I almost put it back on the shelf. Then on an impulse I turned it around to read the synopsis. And there it was — the evidence to what I had been seeking information for so long. There did exist such a language and it was called Nu Shu. The author Lisa See based her book on her research about Nu Shu. Read more about Nu Shu here. Why did the women feel the need to form a secret language? Why did they hide it from the men? And who killed the language.