A logogram, or logograph, is a single written character which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other orthography, such as syllabaries, abjads, and alphabets, where each symbol primarily represents a sound or a combination of sounds.
A good example of modern western logograms are the numbers - 1 stands for one, 2 for two and so on; the ampersand& is used for and, while @ sometimes stands for at.
Compared to alphabetical systems, logograms have a disadvantage in that one needs many of them to be able to write down a large number of words. An advantage is that one does not necessarily need to know the language of the writer to understand them - everyone understands what 1 means, whether they call it one, eins, uno or ichi. Likewise, people speaking different Chinese dialects may not understand each other in speaking, but often can in writing, especially if they write in standard written Chinese. In addition, a logogram-based system uses fewer characters to express something than an alphabetic system, a benefit enjoyed by Chinese and to some extent Japanese users of cell phone web browsers and other devices which display information on a small screen.
A logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language).
Logographs are composed of visual elements arranged in a variety of ways, rather than using the segmental phoneme principle of construction used in alphabetic languages.
Similarly, Japanese kana developed from phonetic use of Chineselogographs, and are often used to disambiguate Chinese characters that may have several pronunciations by writing their grammatical inflections.
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