Few could understand what the old lady was saying. Gao Yinxian, one of the biggest authorities on “female pictograms”, was reading from an ancient letter handed down from her ancestors in a recording she made in her late 80s. Her death in 1990 was undoubtedly a great loss to the legacy of authentic “female pictograms” and professor Xie Zhimin’s research in the field.
Professor Xie Zhimin is a linguist with the South-Center University for Ethnic Minorities in central China's Hubei Province. He is the first person to have conducted systematic academic research into “female pictograms” and is an authority on the subject. In 1982, he happened to come across a strange set of Chinese characters collected by his colleagues from Jiangyong County in central China’s Hunan Province. Some suggested that the characters were religious symbols, while others thought they were merely wrongly written Chinese characters.
The accidental discovery started Xie Zhimin and his research team on a course of study that was to last 18 years to the present day. Professor Xie says that after careful and serious field study, it was unanimously agreed in academic circles that the strange characters represented a unique written female form of the language used in daily life, and has a history of some 3,000 years. The characters bear some similarities to bone inscriptions, but are often oblique and diamond-shaped. So far, over 2,000 such characters have been found, along with a whole set of rules for their pronunciation and grammar. It was handed down from generation to generation in south China and is now only used by a tiny number of women of the Yao ethnic group in Hunan Province.
Professor Xie Zhimin says that the “female pictograms” are of high historic and cultural value.
“This is the only written form in the world used solely by women. Though they are not in common use in today’s society, they reflect women’s pursuit of equality and freedom in ancient China. They show that women are not only participators, but more importantly, along with men, are active contributors to the country’s rich history and culture. What’s more, as can be seen from textual research, these characters represent the origin of an ancient civilization in south China. As the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells represent the ancient culture of the Yellow River Valley in north China, the ‘female pictograms’ are the living fossils of the ancient culture of the Yangtze River Valley in the south. I believe that in-depth research into the characters will help fill in some blanks in our history and culture.”
What’s even more astonishing is that while all other ancient forms of script are now relics, the “female pictograms” have gone through the vicissitudes of some 3,000 years and have still made it down to the current generation, a feat that has aroused the attention of Chinese and foreign scholars. Nearly a hundred foreign scholars and enthusiasts have come to China to take part in the research. Professor Xie Zhimin has met dozens of them from the United States, Japan, Britain and Canada.
“I met some foreign experts who are very interested in the study. They told me that ‘female pictograms’ not only belong to China, but is a unique culture that belongs to the whole world.”
The significance and importance of the characters has spurred Xie Zhimin on to conduct persistent research in the field, despite a serious lack of funds. Often, the only way he can pursue his studies is to go into his monthly salary. However, he says that the biggest headache in the research is the inheritance crisis that "female pictograms" are facing.
“Exponents of the script passed away without the emergence of any worthy successors. Young people don’t bother to learn these characters which modern society seems to be abandoning. And there is a severe shortage of source works for the script”.
Xie Zhimin adds that the future of research into “female pictograms” is also uncertain. The 69-year-old professor is worried there aren’t any competent young scholars ready to take over the research. He says that there are quite a number of mysteries yet to be solved, for example, when and why the characters came into being, and their relation to the Chinese characters we use today. He calls for wider support in the work.
“The research has drawn wide attention from academic circles and the public media. I hope that more help will be given by the government. With more attention and financial support from the government, I believe the preservation and further research into ‘female pictograms’ will not be difficult.”
Professor Xie and his colleagues have blueprinted a “Salvage Project" for the preservation of “female pictograms” and the promotion of its further study. They have initiated a training class on the subject, currently being attended by over 30 students. The professor is sorting out all the materials he has collected over the past two decades and is editing a dictionary of the characters in order to facilitate further research by other scholars. Professor Xie Zhimin has also proposed building a museum and a collection of stone tablets with inscriptions of “female pictograms”. Following the national symposium on the subject that was held in the South-Central University for Ethnic Minorities last year, Xie Zhimin has hopes that an international symposium may be held in the near future.
Professor Xie Zhimin says that all his work is directed to helping save this enchanting culture from oblivion before it is too late.
(cri.com.cn September 3, 2002)
