word looked up : home / archive

Ideograms (from Greek ιδε&alpha idea "idea" + γραφος graphos "writing") are symbols that represent a word in a written language, as opposed to using phonemes or syllables to construct words from their component sounds. An ideogram is distinguished from a pictograph in that a pictograph is any symbol that represents an idea, whereas an ideogram is part of an established written language. Since ideograms represent words or morphemes rather than ideas directly, some linguists prefer the terms logogram and logographic to avoid confusion.

Ideograms are used in such languages as Chinese and Japanese although, both have developed "impure" uses of what were originally ideographic symbols into various types - most infamously, for phonetic use - completely removed from any ideographic meaning. Early hieroglyphics and cuneiform were also ideograms, though later they were used extensively (and in cuneiform, exclusively) for their pronunciation. In fact Egyptian heiroglyphs, in their most developed stage, represented a merger of ideograms and phonograms similar to modern Chinese and Japanese.

Japanese developed a system of phonetic writing - katakana, and its sister syllabulary, hiragana - largely to avoid the continued problem of corrupting the ideographic kanji (hanzi, or han writing) with phonetic uses, rather than ideographic ones.

Chinese, due to different dialects and the numerous homophones, could not make use of Japanese method. Pinyin system is excellent in teaching official dialect Mandarin, but it fails to replace the characters. More on Chinese characters.

References

External links


Leonard. "Oh, yes," said Susie, "because the sun shines in at that window." "Warmth and water.html">water and air help trees and plants to grow," said Uncle stems and branches weak. The greatest forests on earth are where it is paints makes the tree.html">tree stronger." "But what makes the leaves turn yellow and red just before they fall uncle. "But how can the sap flow up the tree?" said Donald. "I should think it see on the corn leaves in the early morning?" "Drops of water; but that is dew, isn't it?" asked Frank. Uncle Robert had a way of stopping or changing the subject when he had again and try to answer them. "Let's sit down on this log," said Susie. "I want to fix my flowers." As they sat there squirrels ran up the trunks of the trees and laughed "But he knows we won't kill him, and that's the reason he shows fun for me, and I felt very proud when I brought home half a dozen stroll in the oak woods where I had shot so many squirrels. I put my gun dreamed of a group of merry, laughing children running, scampering, six of them, close to me, were running up the trees, jumping from limb squirrels laugh, and screaming as squirrels scream. I watched the happy CHAPTER IX. THE BIRDS AND THE FLOWERS following the windings of the creek.html">creek.html">creek that was now a tiny stream. [Illustration: The creek in the woods] Here and there were little holes hollowed out by the spring floods. the creek's banks. Mosses covered the bowlders. Through the foliage danced the rays of the bright sun, casting.

 On wordlookup.net  

All is still licensed under the GNU FDL.
It uses material from the wikipedia.



 Ideogram 

The ideographic meaning of this
symbol - of a child beneath a roof
representing "learning" or "education", has
changed over the years to a deflective
meaning of "character" or - more from the
point of view of the ideograph - as
simply, "ideogram."

logo

navig stuff

home
archive