A Chinese character. The ideographic representation of a child (子) beneath a roof, which once had the meaning of "to care for", has since changed over the years to a deflective meaning of "character", "word" or simply, "ideogram".

Ideograms (from Greek ιδεα idea "idea" + γραφω grapho "to write") are said to be graphical symbols that represent words or morphemes. They are composed of visual elements arranged in a variety of ways, rather than using the segmental phoneme principle of construction used in alphabetic languages. The effect is that while it is relatively easier to remember or guess the sound of alphabetic written words, it is relatively easier to remember or guess the meaning of ideographs. The other feature of ideographs is that they may be used by a plurality of languages which may pronounce them differently while using them in conformity to the same norms. However, many disparate languages use the same (or similar) alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries and the like, so this claim about ideograms is not unique to them. Ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Egyptians from the Mesopotamian and North African centers of civilizations all used some form of ideographical writing, as did the Chinese in the Far East. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian cuneiform both derived from the use of ideograms as phonetic symbols, in much the same way as "4" is sometimes used to represent the word "for" as well as the number; it was the realisation that they were a form of phonetic writing that became the key to the deciphering of the hieroglyphic script. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (646x668, 11 KB)created by TakuyaMurata File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (646x668, 11 KB)created by TakuyaMurata File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... 漢字 hànzì, hanja, kanji… in Traditional Chinese and other languages. ... Look up word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Word may mean: Word (linguistics), a unit of language that symbolizes or communicates a meaning Microsoft Word, a word processor Word (computer science), a small group of bits Word may also be: In hip hop slang, an exclamation indicating deep and complete... In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest language unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... An abjad is a type of writing system where there is one symbol per consonantal phoneme, sometimes also called a consonantary. ... An abugida or alphasyllabary is a writing system composed of signs (graphemes) denoting consonants with an inherent following vowel, which are consistently modified to indicate other vowels (or, in some cases, the lack of a vowel). ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... Sumer (or Shumer, Sumeria, Shinar, native ki-en-gir) formed the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. ... Babylonia was an ancient state in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. ... Assyria in earliest historical times referred to a region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the city of Ashur. ... Relief of Suppiluliuma II, last known king of the Hittite Empire Hittites is the conventional English-language term for an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa (the modern village of BoÄŸazköy in north-central Turkey), through most of the... This is an article about the ancient middle eastern region. ... North Africa is a region generally considered to include: Algeria Egypt Libya Mauritania Morocco Sudan Tunisia Western Sahara The Azores, Canary Islands, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Madeira are sometimes considered to be a part of North Africa. ... Far East is an inexact term often used for East Asia and Southeast Asia combined, sometimes including also the easternmost territories of Russia, i. ... Hieroglyphs are a system of writing used by the Ancient Egyptians, using a combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements. ... The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it... Cuneiform script The Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. ... The Rosetta Stone solved a particularly difficult linguistic problem. ...

Chinese characters

Chinese characters are conventionally called ideographs or ideograms, but their own linguistic tradition divides characters into at least five categories, of which "ideograph" is a plausible translation of only one or two. The Chinese classifications are (roughly translated) pictogram, ideogram, indicative, shape-sound compound, and borrowed. Borrowed characters are homophones used when no more "inventive" character emerges in common use. 漢字 hànzì, hanja, kanji… in Traditional Chinese and other languages. ...

• Pictograms are characters that have derived from literal pictures of the objects they originally denoted: for example, the character used to write the word "moon", 月, is derived from a stylised picture of a crescent moon.
• Ideograms proper, which are typically composed of pictograms arranged "with a convenient story" to suggest something more abstract—like sun and moon together to form a word like "bright" 明 or the character for "state" 國 which consists of a box-like border surrounding the "region" 域. Many westerners mistakenly believe that all Chinese characters are of this type, but in reality there are very few certain examples.
• Indicatives are unlike pictograms in that they do not picture things, but "indicate" their use—for example, the character for "below" 下 has a stroke below the T of a perpendicular diagram while "above" 上 has an upside down T with the stroke above the perpendicular base.
• The sound-shape compounds typically consist of a classifying unit (typically a pictograph like "fish" or "horse" or "water") combined with a "phonetic" unit that is prounced in the same way in one of the languages using the system. An example is the character 妈 or "mother". The classifying unit happens to be the left half of the character, meaning "female". The phonetic unit is on the right, which means "horse" but sounds like "ma".
• Borrowed characters are homophones with little or no meaning relation that became current before any of the more "inventive" types did.

The shape-sound type is most flexible and most new and "sub-species" characters use this principle of construction. The character 國 is an example of this, combining a classifying component 囗 and a phonetic component 或. New pure ideograms and pictograms are rare—though some have been somewhat playfully composed later such as a square box over a horizontal line to mean computer. By dictionary count the great bulk of characters (some estimate as many as 90%) use the shape-sound principle. Some have advocated calling these phonologograms.

Japanese characters

Japanese ideograms, or Kanji, as well as Korean ideograms, or Hanja, are mostly Chinese characters, sometimes altered in shape, or native characters made to resemble Chinese characters. (The characters of Japanese origin are called 国字, or kokuji; those of Korean origin, 국자 [國字], or gugja). Both languages originally used Chinese characters not only to represent the original Chinese words and native words of the same meaning, but also phonetically. Since medieval times native scripts have been developed for phonetic use - katakana and hiragana in Japanese, both of which use heavily simplified forms of the characters that had been used phonetically, and the hangul script in Korean. Japanese (日本語,   Nihongo?) is a language of as-yet unknown origins spoken by over 127 million people, mainly in Japan, but also by Japanese emigrant communities around the world. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Kanji (   漢字?, literally Han characters) are Chinese characters used in Japanese. ... The Korean language (한국어 / ì¡°ì„ ì–´) is the most widely used language in Korea, and is the official language of both North and South Korea. ... Hanja (lit. ... 漢字 hànzì, hanja, kanji… in Traditional Chinese and other languages. ... The characters for Kanji, lit. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Katakana (片仮名, literally: partial kana) are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are hiragana, kanji and rōmaji). ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Hiragana (平仮名 literally smooth kana) are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are katakana, kanji and rōmaji). ... Hangul (한글) is the native alphabet used to write the Korean language, as opposed to the Hanja system borrowed from China. ...

Terminological objections

The common misconception that Chinese ideograms somehow exist separately from spoken language, representing pure ideas, which can somehow be determined from their shape, has led to many attempts to abandon the name in favour of a term that more accurately represents their morphemic and phonetic) nature: that is, that they represent words and syllables, not ideas. A popular alternative is logogram, from the Greek roots logos ("word") and grapho ("to write"). However, this term is not entirely accurate, because many words require two or more characters to write them. Other terms include Sinogram, emphasising the Chinese origin of the characters, and Han character, a literal translation of the native term. These terms have gained some currency among scholars, but have failed to spread into common usage. The native terms (Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji) are also fairly widespread in the contexts of the individual languages, but they are not generally considered suitable for discussion of the script as a whole. In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest language unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... A Chinese logogram A logogram, or logograph, is a single written character which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Kanji (   漢字?, literally Han characters) are Chinese characters used in Japanese. ...

See also

• Logotype
• Icon
• Sona language
• Blissymbolics

This article or section should include material from logo design, discuss it at Talk:Logo design A logotype, commonly known as a logo, is the graphic element of a trademark or brand, which is set in a special typeface/font, or arranged in a particular, but legible, way. ... The Savior (1410s, by Andrei Rublev) An icon (from Greek , eikon, image) is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the monitor... Sona is an international auxiliary language created by Kenneth Searight and described in a book he published in 1935. ... Blissymbolics or Blissymbols is an ideographic writing system consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symbols that represent new concepts. ...

References

• DeFrancis, John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824810686
• Hannas, William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 082481892X (paperback); ISBN 0824818423 (hardcover)
• Unger, J. Marshall. 2003. Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning. ISBN 0824827600 (trade paperback), ISBN 0824826566 (hardcover)

External links

• The Ideographic Myth (an extract from DeFrancis' book)
• Unihan Database (the Unicode consortium's database of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ideograms)
• Jim Breen Kanji resources home
• Breen's Kanji search (multiple methods, including English meaning, for translation)
• Breen's translation Cut and paste kanji from web pages
• Breen's Kanji search (multi-radical method)
• Kiki's Kanji Dictionary