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[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Politics and social sciences]]
 
[[Category:Linguistics]]
 
[[Category:Linguistics]]
 
{{Morefootnotes|date=November 2008}}
 
 
{{Writing systems sidebar}}
 
{{Writing systems sidebar}}
A '''logogram''', or '''logograph''', is a [[grapheme]] which represents a [[word (linguistics)|word]] or a [[morpheme]] (the smallest meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to [[phonogram (linguistics)|phonograms]], which represent [[phoneme]]s (speech sounds) or combinations of phonemes, and [[determinative]]s, which mark [[semantics|semantic categories]].
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A '''logogram,''' or '''logograph,''' is a written or pictorial [[symbol]] that is used to represent an entire [[word (linguistics)|word]], unlike [[phonogram (linguistics)|phonograms]], which represent [[phonetic]] sounds. Logograms are commonly known as “[[ideogram]]s” or “[[hieroglyphs]]” although, technically, an ideogram represents an [[idea]] rather than a specific word. As a purely logographic script would be impractical for most [[language]]s, [[writing system]]s that incorporate logograms also make use of phonetic elements. Thus, such writing systems make use of a combination of phonetic and logographic symbols, including ideograms.  
  
Logograms are commonly known also as "ideograms" or "hieroglyphics", which can also be called "hieroglyphs". Strictly speaking, however, [[ideogram]]s represent ideas directly rather than words and morphemes, and none of the logographic systems described here are truly ideographic.
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A significant advantage of using logographic symbols is that they can be easily understood no matter what language is spoken, which is not the case with writing systems like [[alphabet]]s or [[syllabary|syllabaries]] which are purely phonetic. Thus, the use of logograms allows people of different cultures to [[communication|communicate]] even when their spoken languages are mutually unintelligible. On the other hand, the number and complexity of logograms seriously reduces their utility as a common language for all people. It takes many years of [[education]] to master a large enough set to support the communication of detailed and complicated ideas and concepts, and thus the less educated find themselves functionally [[literacy|illiterate]]. Thus, while logograms have many benefits, and certainly were a great advance for humankind in supporting written language, the development of the more functional phonetic alphabets allowed all people to be able to express themselves in written form with greater ease.
  
Since logograms are visual symbols representing words rather than the sounds or [[phoneme]]s that make up the word, it is relatively easier to remember or guess the sound of alphabetic written words, while it might be relatively easier to remember or guess the meaning of logograms. Another feature of logograms is that a single logogram may be used by a plurality of languages to represent words with similar meanings. While disparate languages may also use the same or similar alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries and the like, the degree to which they may share identical representations for words with disparate pronunciations is much more limited.
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==History of logographic systems==
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'''Logographic''' systems, or logographies, include the earliest true [[writing system]]s. The first historical [[civilization]]s of the [[Near East]], [[China]], and [[Central America]] used some form of logographic writing.  
  
==Logographic systems==
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===Sumerian cuneiform===
[[Image:Papyrus Ani curs hiero.jpg|thumb|Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms.]]
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[[Cuneiform script|Cuneiform]] writing was developed by the [[Sumerian]] people of [[Mesopotamia]] around 3300 B.C.E., and had a strong influence on the development of a number of other writing systems, including the [[Cuneiform script#Akkadian cuneiform|Akkadian]] and [[Babylonian]] scripts. Cuneiform evolved from the use of [[clay]] [[token]]s to count agricultural and manufactured [[goods]]. Multiple clay tokens were sealed into jars, and a [[stylus]] was used to imprint an image of each clay token contained inside. Eventually, symbols were developed for representing multiple numbers, and the symbols began to replace the clay tokens altogether.  
Logographic systems, or logographies, include the earliest true writing systems; the first historical civilizations of the Near East, China, and Central America used some form of logographic writing.
 
  
A purely logographic script would be impractical for most languages, and none is known apart from one devised for the artificial language [[Toki Pona]], a purposefully limited language with only 120 morphemes. All logographic scripts ever used for natural languages rely on the [[rebus]] principle to extend a relatively limited set of logograms: A subset of characters is used for their phonetic values, either consonantal or syllabic. The term ''logosyllabary'' is used to emphasize the partially phonetic nature of these scripts when the phonetic domain is the syllable. In Chinese, there has been the additional development of fusing such phonetic elements with [[determinative]]s; such "[[radical (Chinese character)|radical]] and phonetic" characters make up the bulk of the script, and Chinese has relegated simple rebuses to the spelling of foreign loan words and words from non-standard dialects.  
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Early Sumerian writing included pictographic images. The image for “bird” was clearly a [[bird]], for example. After 3000 B.C.E.., however, these images began to evolve into the familiar groupings of wedge shapes that are recognized as cuneiform writing. Around this time, the writing system also began to change into a more phonetic-based system.<ref>Lawrence Lo, [http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html “Sumerian,”] Ancientscripts.com (2007). Retrieved February 23, 2009.</ref>
  
Logographic writing systems include:
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The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "[[head]]."<ref>Rykle Borger, [http://www.jhu.edu/ice/BorgerMZ/MZ03.html 184 sag,] ''Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon,'' Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding. Retrieved February 23, 2009.</ref>
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[[Image:SAG.svg|left|400px|Evolution of the cuneiform sign SAG "head," 3000 B.C.E.–1000 B.C.E.]]
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<br clear="all">
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Stage 1 shows the [[pictogram]] as it was drawn around 3000 B.C.E. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 B.C.E. Stage 3 shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 B.C.E., and stage 4 is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3. Stage 5 represents the late third millennium, and stage 6 represents Old [[Assyria]]n of the early second millennium, as adopted into [[Hittite]]. Stage 7 is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early first millennium, and until the script's extinction.<ref name=kramer>Samuel Noah Kramer, ''Thirty Nine Firsts In Recorded History'' (University of Pennsylvania, 1998, ISBN 0812212762).</ref>
  
*Logoconsonantal scripts
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===Egyptian hieroglyphs===
*:These are scripts in which the graphemes may be extended phonetically according to the consonants of the words they represent, ignoring the vowels. For example, Egyptian <hiero>G38</hiero> was used to write both ''{{unicode|sȝ}}'' "duck" and ''{{unicode|sȝ}}'' "son", though it is likely that these words were not pronounced the same apart from their consonants. The primary examples of logoconsonantal scripts are,
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[[Image:Papyrus Ani curs hiero.jpg|thumb|Egyptian hieroglyphs, many of which function as logograms.]]
*:*[[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Hieroglyphs]], [[hieratic]], and [[Demotic (Egyptian)|demotic]]{{ndash}}  [[Ancient Egypt]]
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Ancient [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] were used from about 3200 B.C.E. until almost 400 C.E. Egyptian hieroglyphs are often clearly recognizable as the objects they represent; [[pictograph]]ic representations of humans, animals, and tools require little guesswork as to the word they represent.
  
*[[Logosyllabic writing|Logosyllabic]] scripts
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While hieroglyphic writing is generally done phonetically, nearly all the phonetic glyphs can also serve as logograms. A silent vertical stroke accompanying a glyph indicates that it should be read as a logogram. Many of the phonetic values of Egyptian glyphs are also influenced by the meaning of the glyph when used as a logogram. In English, this would be similar to an image of a [[book]] being assigned the phonetic value “B,” because “B” is associated with “b”ook.
*:These are scripts in which the graphemes represent morphemes, often polysyllabic morphemes, but when extended phonetically represent single syllables. They include,
 
*:*[[Anatolian hieroglyph]]s{{ndash}} [[Luwian language|Luwian]]
 
*:*[[Cuneiform script|Cuneiform]]{{ndash}} [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]], [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]], other [[Semitic languages]], [[Elamite language|Elamite]], [[Hittite language|Hittite]], [[Luwian language|Luwian]], [[Hurrian language|Hurrian]], and [[Urartian language|Urartian]]
 
*:*[[Dongba script]]{{ndash}} [[Naxi language]]
 
*:*[[Tangut script]]{{ndash}} [[Tangut language]]
 
*:*[[Shui_script#Shui_script|Shui script]]{{ndash}}[[Shui language]]{{Dubious|date=November 2008}}{{fix|text=the article claims it's pictographic}}
 
*:*[[Maya script|Maya glyphs]]{{ndash}} [[Chorti language|Chorti]], [[Yucatec Maya language|Yucatec]], and other [[Classic Maya language]]s
 
*:*[[Yi script#Classical Yi|Yi]] (classical){{ndash}} various [[Yi language]]s
 
*:*[[Chinese character|Han characters]]{{ndash}} [[Chinese languages]], [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]
 
*:*Derivatives of Han characters:
 
*:**[[Chữ nôm]]{{ndash}} [[Vietnam]]
 
*:**[[Geba script]]{{ndash}} [[Naxi]]
 
*:**[[Jurchen script]]{{ndash}} [[Jurchen language|Jurchen]]
 
*:**[[Khitan script|Khitan]] large script{{ndash}} [[Khitan language|Khitan]]
 
*:**[[Zhuang logogram|Sawndip]]{{ndash}} [[Zhuang language|Zhuang]]
 
  
None of these systems was purely logographic. This can be illustrated with Chinese. Not all Chinese characters represent morphemes: some morphemes are composed of more than one character. For example, the Chinese word for spider, 蜘蛛 ''zhīzhū'', was creating by fusing the rebus 知朱 ''zhīzhū'' (literally "know cinnabar") with the 'bug' determinative 虫. Neither *蜘 ''zhī'' nor *蛛 ''zhū'' occur separately (except to stand in for 蜘蛛 in poetry). In Archaic Chinese, one can find the reverse: a single character representing more than one morpheme. An example is Archaic Chinese 王 ''hjwangs'', a combination of a morpheme ''hjwang'' meaning king (coincidentally also written 王) and a suffix pronounced ''s''. (The suffix is preserved in the modern falling tone.) In modern Mandarin, bimorphemic syllables are always written with two characters, for example 花儿 ''huār'' "flower (diminutive)".
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Thus, for example, with the vertical stroke the logogram ''dšr,'' means "[[flamingo]]:"
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<hiero>G27-Z1</hiero> 
  
Logograms are used in modern [[shorthand]] to represent common words. In addition, the [[numeral]]s and mathematical symbols used in alphabetic systems are logograms{{ndash}} '''1''' ''one,'' '''2''' ''two,'' '''+''' ''plus,'' '''=''' ''equals,'' and so on. In English, the [[ampersand]] '''&''' is used for ''and'' and ''et'' (such as '''&c''' for ''[[et cetera]]''), '''%''' for ''percent'', '''$''' for ''dollar'', '''#''' for ''number'', '''€''' for ''euro'', '''£''' for ''pound'', etc.
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The corresponding [[phonogram]], without the vertical stroke, means "red" because the bird is associated with this [[color]]:
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<hiero>G27</hiero>
  
==Ideographic and phonetic dimensions==
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===Other hieroglyphic writing systems===
All historical logographic systems include a phonetic dimension (such as the "a" in the logogram '''@''' ''at''). In some cases, such as cuneiform as it was used for Akkadian, the vast majority of glyphs are used for their sound values rather than logographically.  Many logographic systems also have an [[ideogram|ideographic]] component, called "determinatives" in the case of Egyptian and "radicals" in the case of Chinese. Typical Egyptian usage is to augment a logogram, which may potentially represent several words with different pronunciations, with a determinative to narrow down the meaning, and a phonetic component to specify the pronunciation. In the case of Chinese, the vast majority of characters are a fixed combination of a radical that indicates its semantic category, plus a phonetic to give an idea of the pronunciation. The Mayan system used logograms with phonetic complements like the Egyptian, while lacking ideographic components.
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While Egyptian hieroglyphs may be the most well-known, a number of other [[hieroglyph]]ic scripts employ the use of logograms. These include [[Anatolian hieroglyph]]s (used to write [[Luwian]]), [[Mayan Civilization|Mayan]] hieroglyphs, [[Olmec]] hieroglyphs, [[Mi’kmaq]] hieroglyphs, and [[Hieroglyph#Dongba script|Dongba script]]. With the exception of the Dongba script, which is still used by the [[Naxi]] priests in [[China]] and [[Tibet]], hieroglyphic writing systems are no longer in use.
  
==Chinese characters==
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===Asian languages===
{{main|Chinese character classification}}
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A number of Asian languages (most notably [[Chinese language|Chinese]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], and [[Korean language|Korean]]) employ heavy use of logographic characters. Chinese and its derivative, Japanese ''[[kanji]],'' are perhaps the most widely cited examples of predominantly logographic scripts still in use today.  
Chinese scholars have traditionally classified Chinese characters into six types by etymology.
 
  
The first two types are "single-body", meaning that the character was created independently of other Chinese characters. Although the perception of most Westerners is that most characters were derived in ''single-body'' fashion, pictograms and ideograms actually take up but a small proportion of Chinese logograms. More productive for the Chinese script were the two
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When discussing Asian languages, the term “character” often replaces the term “logogram.” In the Chinese language, there are over 50,000 [[Chinese character|characters]], 2,000 of which are considered necessary for basic [[literacy]]. In Japanese, knowledge of 1850 characters is required. While not all of these characters are technically logograms, most have logographic elements. For example, a character may represent only a part of a word as well as the word itself.  
"compound" methods, i.e. the character was created from assembling different characters. Despite being called "compounds", these logograms are still single characters, and are written to take up the same amount of space as any other logogram. The final two types are methods in the usage of characters rather than the formation of characters themselves.
 
  
 
[[Image:chineseprimer3.png|right|180px|thumb|Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters]]
 
[[Image:chineseprimer3.png|right|180px|thumb|Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters]]
  
#The first type, and the type most often associated with Chinese writing, are '''[[pictogram]]s''', which are pictorial representations of the [[morpheme]] represented, e.g. 山 for "mountain".
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Chinese characters are traditionally divided into six types, of which only a very small number are true logograms, representing a single word. Some of the oldest Chinese characters are stylized [[pictograph]]s, like 人 for "man," 木 for "tree," or 山 for "mountain." There are also a number of ideographs (representing abstract [[idea]]s), such as 上 for "up" and 下 for "down." Many characters are "compounds," combinations of elements (called [[Radical (Chinese character)|radical]]s) in which each radical hints at the meaning. For example, 休 for "rest" is composed of the characters for "man" (人) and "tree" (木), with the intended idea of someone leaning against a tree, thus resting.  
#The second type are '''[[ideogram]]s''' that attempt to visualize abstract concepts, such as 上 "up" and 下 "down".  Also considered ideograms are pictograms with an ideographic indicator; for instance, 刀 is a pictogram meaning "knife", while 刃 is an ideogram meaning "blade".
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#'''Radical-radical compounds''' in which each element of the character (called [[Radical (Chinese character)|radical]]) hints at the meaning. For example, 休 "rest" is composed of the characters for "man" (人) and "tree" (木), with the intended idea of someone leaning against a tree, i.e. resting.
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The majority of Chinese characters, however, are compound characters called “semantic-phonetic compounds.” These characters, which represent approximately ninety percent of existing characters, are made up of a radical that hints at the meaning of a character, as well as a phonetic component that helps clarify the pronunciation of the character.<ref>Simon Ager, [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese_types.htm#types “Types of Chinese Characters,”] Omniglot (2009). Retrieved February 23, 2009.</ref>
#'''Radical-phonetic compounds''', in which one component (the radical) indicates the general meaning of the character, and the other (the phonetic) hints at the pronunciation. An example is 樑 (Chinese: ''liáng''), where the phonetic 梁 ''liáng'' indicates the pronunciation of the character and the radical 木 ("wood") its meaning of "supporting beam". Characters of this type constitute the majority of Chinese logograms.
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#'''Changed-annotation characters''' are characters which were originally the same character but have bifurcated through [[orthography|orthographic]] and often [[semantics|semantic]] drift.  For instance, 樂 can mean both "music"(pinyin: ''yuè '') and "pleasure" (pinyin: ''lè'').
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Within the context of the Chinese language, Chinese characters by and large represent words and [[morpheme]]s rather than pure ideas; however, the adoption of Chinese characters by the Japanese and Korean languages (where they are known as ''kanji'' and ''[[hanja]],'' respectively) have resulted in some complications to this picture.
#'''Improvisational characters''' (lit. "improvised-borrowed-words") come into use when a native spoken word has no corresponding character, and hence another character with the same or a similar sound (and often a close meaning) is "borrowed"; occasionally, the new meaning can supplant the old meaning. 自 used to be a pictographic word meaning "nose", but was borrowed to mean "self". It is now used almost exclusively to mean "self", while the "nose" meaning survives only in set-phrases and more archaic compounds. Because of their derivational process, the entire set of Japanese [[kana]] can be considered to be of this character, hence the name ''kana'' (仮名; 仮 is a simplified form of 假 but used in Japan only).
 
  
The most productive method of Chinese writing, the radical-phonetic, was made possible because the phonetic system of Chinese allowed for generous [[homonymy]], and because in consideration of phonetic similarity [[Tonal language|tone]] was generally ignored, as were the medial and final consonants of the characters in consideration, at least according to theory following from reconstructed [[Old Chinese]] pronunciation. Note that due to the long period of language evolution, such component "hints" within characters as provided by the radical-phonetic compounds are sometimes useless and may be misleading in modern usage.
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Many Chinese words, composed of Chinese morphemes, were borrowed into Japanese and Korean together with their character representations; in this case, the morphemes and characters were borrowed together. In other cases, however, characters were borrowed to represent native Japanese and Korean morphemes, on the basis of meaning alone. As a result, a single character can represent multiple morphemes of similar meaning but different origins (and thus different pronunciations) across several languages. Because of this, ''kanji'' and ''hanja'' are often described as [[morphographic]] writing systems.
  
===Chinese characters used in Japanese and Korean===
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==Numbers and symbols==
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There are a number of logograms in use today that are understood world-wide. For example, symbols for [[currency]] like "$," "€," and "£" are universally recognized to mean "[[United States dollar|dollar]]," "[[euro]]," and "[[pound sterling|pound]]" respectively. The vast majority of universal logograms are related to [[mathematics]], such as numerals ([[1 (number)|1]], [[2 (number)|2]], [[3 (number)|3]], and so forth) and mathematical symbols like “+” (plus), “<” (less than), and “π” ([[pi]]). While the spoken representation of these symbols may change according to the language, the symbols themselves transcend language barriers. This is the reason many have referred to mathematics as “the universal language.”
  
Within the context of the Chinese language, Chinese characters by and large represent words and morphemes rather than pure ideas; however, the adoption of Chinese characters by the Japanese and Korean languages (where they are known as [[kanji]] and [[hanja]], respectively) have resulted in some complications to this picture.
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==Phonetic and logographic elements==
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All logographic scripts, both ancient and modern, include a [[phonetic]] system that works in tandem with logographic elements of the script. In some cases, like [[Egyptian hieroglyph]]s, most [[glyph]]s are used for their phonetic values and not their logographic meaning. Many logographic systems also employ an [[ideogram|ideographic]] component (“determinatives” in Egyptian hieroglyphs or “[[radical (Chinese language|radicals]]” in [[Chinese language|Chinese]]) that serves to clarify the meaning of a particular logogram. Scripts can also use phonetic complements to give clues as to the intended interpretation of a logogram.
  
Many Chinese words, composed of Chinese morphemes, were borrowed into Japanese and Korean together with their character representations; in this case, the morphemes and characters were borrowed together. In other cases, however, characters were borrowed to represent native Japanese and Korean morphemes, on the basis of meaning alone. As a result, a single character can end up representing multiple morphemes of similar meaning but different origins across several languages. Because of this, kanji and hanja are often described as [[morphographic]] writing systems.
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==Advantages of logographic systems==
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One of the clearest advantages to the use of logographic symbols or characters is their universality. This can be seen in [[mathematics]], where mathematical [[formula]]s and problems can be easily understood by mathematicians from any country.  
  
==Advantages and disadvantages==
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This advantage is also evident in [[China]], where hundreds of spoken [[dialect]]s make use of the same (or similar) written language. Chinese who speak different dialects may not understand each other through speech, but can communicate effectively through [[writing]]. Even Japanese and Korean people, familiar with a smaller set of [[Chinese character]]s, can achieve better communication among their different cultures through the use of these logograms.
=== Separating writing and pronunciation ===
 
The main difference between logograms and other writing systems is that the graphemes aren't linked directly to their pronunciation. An advantage of this separation is that one doesn't need to understand the pronunciation or language of the writer to understand it. The reader will recognise the meaning of '''1''', whether it is called ''one'', ''ichi'' or ''{{ArabDIN|wāḥid}}'' in the language of the writer.
 
Likewise, people speaking different Chinese dialects may not understand each other in speaking, but can to a limited extent, in writing even if they don't write in [[Vernacular Chinese|standard Chinese]]. Moreover, in East Asia (including China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, etc) prior to modern time, communication by writing (筆談) was the norm of international trade and diplomacy. Deaf people also find logogram systems easier to learn as the words are not related to sound.
 
  
This separation, however, also has the great disadvantage of requiring the memorization of the logograms when learning to read and write, separately from the pronunciation. Though not an inherent feature of logograms, [[Japanese language|Japanese]] has the added complication that almost every logogram has more than one pronunciation. Conversely, a phonetic character set is written precisely as it is spoken, but with the disadvantage that slight pronunciation differences introduce ambiguities. Many alphabetic systems such as those of [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Latin]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Finnish language|Finnish]] make the practical compromise of standardizing how words are written while maintaining a good one-to-one relation between characters and sounds. [[English orthography]] is more complicated than that and character combinations are often pronounced in multiple ways. [[Hangul]], the [[Korean language]] writing system, is an example of an alphabet that was designed to replace the logogrammic [[hanja]] in order to increase literacy. The latter is now rarely used in Korea.
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==Disadvantages of logographic systems==
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Logographic writing systems have clear disadvantages as well, one of the most obvious being that they are more time consuming to learn. Instead of the small number of letters that constitute a phonetic [[alphabet]], logographic writing systems require the memorization of a large group of logograms. Also, while most logographic languages have phonetic components, the pronunciation of a word is generally dependent on the reader knowing the meaning of a particular logographic symbol. Words in many alphabetic writing systems such as [[Italian language|Italian]] can be sounded out if they are not known to the reader; this cannot be done in more logographic languages like Chinese or Japanese.
  
=== Characters in information technology ===
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Logographic characters can also create difficulty with electronic devices. Instead of the reasonably small set of characters that make up most alphabetic systems of writing, logographic scripts like Chinese are much more cumbersome to type. With advances in technology, various methods have been developed for typing logograms: Chinese can be typed on a computer either by breaking a character up into its constituent parts, or by entering a phonetic [[pronunciation]] and selecting the correct character from a list.  
Inputting complex characters can be cumbersome on electronic devices due to a practical limitation in the number of input keys. There exist various [[input method]]s for entering [[logograms]], either by breaking them up into their constituent parts such as with the [[Cangjie input method|Cangjie]] or [[Wubi method]] of typing Chinese, or using phonetic systems such as [[Bopomofo]] or [[Pinyin]] where the word is entered as pronounced and then selected from a list of logograms matching it. While the former method is (linearly) faster, it is more difficult to learn. With the Chinese alphabet system however, the strokes forming the logogram are typed as they are normally written, and the corresponding logogram is then entered.
 
  
Also due to the number of glyphs, in programming and computing in general, more memory is needed to store each grapheme as the character set is larger. As a comparison, [[ISO 8859]] requires only one [[byte]] for each grapheme, while the [[Basic Multilingual Plane]] encoded in [[UTF-8]] requires up to three bytes. On the other hand, English words, for example, average five characters and a space per word<ref>{{cite web
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==Notes==
|title=Sentence and word length
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<references/>
|url=http://hearle.nahoo.net/Academic/Maths/Sentence.html
 
|access-date = 2007-5-27
 
}}</ref>
 
and thus need six bytes for every word. Since many logograms contain more than one grapheme, it is not clear which is more memory-efficient. [[Variable-width encoding]]s allow a unified character encoding standard such as [[Unicode]] to use only the bytes necessary to represent a character, reducing the overhead that follows merging large character sets with smaller ones.
 
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
{{reflist}}
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* DeFrancis, John. ''The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy''. University of Hawaii Press, 1984. ISBN 0824810686.
* {{cite book |author=[[John DeFrancis|DeFrancis, John]] |title=The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=1984 |isbn=0-8248-1068-6}}
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* Hannas, William C. ''Asia's Orthographic Dilemma''. |University of Hawaii Press, 1997. ISBN 082481892X.
* {{cite book |author=Hannas, William C. |title=Asia's Orthographic Dilemma |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=1997 |isbn=0-8248-1892-X }}
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* Hoffman, Joel M. ''In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language''. NYU Press, 2004. ISBN 0814736904.
* {{cite book |author=Hoffman, Joel M. |title=In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language |publisher=NYU Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-8147-3690-4}} - Chapter 3.
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* Kramer, Samuel Noah. ''Thirty Nine Firsts In Recorded History''. University of Pennsylvania, 1998. ISBN 0812212762.
  
 
{{Writing systems |expanded=Logograms}}
 
{{Writing systems |expanded=Logograms}}
  
 
{{Credits|Logogram|260378605}}
 
{{Credits|Logogram|260378605}}

Latest revision as of 15:34, 24 February 2009

Kielitynkäkuva.png
Writing systems
History
Types
Alphabet
Abjad
Abugida
Syllabary
Logogram
Related
Pictogram
Ideogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a written or pictorial symbol that is used to represent an entire word, unlike phonograms, which represent phonetic sounds. Logograms are commonly known as “ideograms” or “hieroglyphs” although, technically, an ideogram represents an idea rather than a specific word. As a purely logographic script would be impractical for most languages, writing systems that incorporate logograms also make use of phonetic elements. Thus, such writing systems make use of a combination of phonetic and logographic symbols, including ideograms.

A significant advantage of using logographic symbols is that they can be easily understood no matter what language is spoken, which is not the case with writing systems like alphabets or syllabaries which are purely phonetic. Thus, the use of logograms allows people of different cultures to communicate even when their spoken languages are mutually unintelligible. On the other hand, the number and complexity of logograms seriously reduces their utility as a common language for all people. It takes many years of education to master a large enough set to support the communication of detailed and complicated ideas and concepts, and thus the less educated find themselves functionally illiterate. Thus, while logograms have many benefits, and certainly were a great advance for humankind in supporting written language, the development of the more functional phonetic alphabets allowed all people to be able to express themselves in written form with greater ease.

History of logographic systems

Logographic systems, or logographies, include the earliest true writing systems. The first historical civilizations of the Near East, China, and Central America used some form of logographic writing.

Sumerian cuneiform

Cuneiform writing was developed by the Sumerian people of Mesopotamia around 3300 B.C.E., and had a strong influence on the development of a number of other writing systems, including the Akkadian and Babylonian scripts. Cuneiform evolved from the use of clay tokens to count agricultural and manufactured goods. Multiple clay tokens were sealed into jars, and a stylus was used to imprint an image of each clay token contained inside. Eventually, symbols were developed for representing multiple numbers, and the symbols began to replace the clay tokens altogether.

Early Sumerian writing included pictographic images. The image for “bird” was clearly a bird, for example. After 3000 B.C.E., however, these images began to evolve into the familiar groupings of wedge shapes that are recognized as cuneiform writing. Around this time, the writing system also began to change into a more phonetic-based system.[1]

The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head."[2]

Evolution of the cuneiform sign SAG "head," 3000 B.C.E.–1000 B.C.E.


Stage 1 shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 B.C.E. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 B.C.E. Stage 3 shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 B.C.E., and stage 4 is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3. Stage 5 represents the late third millennium, and stage 6 represents Old Assyrian of the early second millennium, as adopted into Hittite. Stage 7 is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early first millennium, and until the script's extinction.[3]

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs, many of which function as logograms.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were used from about 3200 B.C.E. until almost 400 C.E. Egyptian hieroglyphs are often clearly recognizable as the objects they represent; pictographic representations of humans, animals, and tools require little guesswork as to the word they represent.

While hieroglyphic writing is generally done phonetically, nearly all the phonetic glyphs can also serve as logograms. A silent vertical stroke accompanying a glyph indicates that it should be read as a logogram. Many of the phonetic values of Egyptian glyphs are also influenced by the meaning of the glyph when used as a logogram. In English, this would be similar to an image of a book being assigned the phonetic value “B,” because “B” is associated with “b”ook.

Thus, for example, with the vertical stroke the logogram dšr, means "flamingo:"

G27Z1

The corresponding phonogram, without the vertical stroke, means "red" because the bird is associated with this color:

G27

Other hieroglyphic writing systems

While Egyptian hieroglyphs may be the most well-known, a number of other hieroglyphic scripts employ the use of logograms. These include Anatolian hieroglyphs (used to write Luwian), Mayan hieroglyphs, Olmec hieroglyphs, Mi’kmaq hieroglyphs, and Dongba script. With the exception of the Dongba script, which is still used by the Naxi priests in China and Tibet, hieroglyphic writing systems are no longer in use.

Asian languages

A number of Asian languages (most notably Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) employ heavy use of logographic characters. Chinese and its derivative, Japanese kanji, are perhaps the most widely cited examples of predominantly logographic scripts still in use today.

When discussing Asian languages, the term “character” often replaces the term “logogram.” In the Chinese language, there are over 50,000 characters, 2,000 of which are considered necessary for basic literacy. In Japanese, knowledge of 1850 characters is required. While not all of these characters are technically logograms, most have logographic elements. For example, a character may represent only a part of a word as well as the word itself.

Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters

Chinese characters are traditionally divided into six types, of which only a very small number are true logograms, representing a single word. Some of the oldest Chinese characters are stylized pictographs, like 人 for "man," 木 for "tree," or 山 for "mountain." There are also a number of ideographs (representing abstract ideas), such as 上 for "up" and 下 for "down." Many characters are "compounds," combinations of elements (called radicals) in which each radical hints at the meaning. For example, 休 for "rest" is composed of the characters for "man" (人) and "tree" (木), with the intended idea of someone leaning against a tree, thus resting.

The majority of Chinese characters, however, are compound characters called “semantic-phonetic compounds.” These characters, which represent approximately ninety percent of existing characters, are made up of a radical that hints at the meaning of a character, as well as a phonetic component that helps clarify the pronunciation of the character.[4]

Within the context of the Chinese language, Chinese characters by and large represent words and morphemes rather than pure ideas; however, the adoption of Chinese characters by the Japanese and Korean languages (where they are known as kanji and hanja, respectively) have resulted in some complications to this picture.

Many Chinese words, composed of Chinese morphemes, were borrowed into Japanese and Korean together with their character representations; in this case, the morphemes and characters were borrowed together. In other cases, however, characters were borrowed to represent native Japanese and Korean morphemes, on the basis of meaning alone. As a result, a single character can represent multiple morphemes of similar meaning but different origins (and thus different pronunciations) across several languages. Because of this, kanji and hanja are often described as morphographic writing systems.

Numbers and symbols

There are a number of logograms in use today that are understood world-wide. For example, symbols for currency like "$," "€," and "£" are universally recognized to mean "dollar," "euro," and "pound" respectively. The vast majority of universal logograms are related to mathematics, such as numerals (1, 2, 3, and so forth) and mathematical symbols like “+” (plus), “<” (less than), and “π” (pi). While the spoken representation of these symbols may change according to the language, the symbols themselves transcend language barriers. This is the reason many have referred to mathematics as “the universal language.”

Phonetic and logographic elements

All logographic scripts, both ancient and modern, include a phonetic system that works in tandem with logographic elements of the script. In some cases, like Egyptian hieroglyphs, most glyphs are used for their phonetic values and not their logographic meaning. Many logographic systems also employ an ideographic component (“determinatives” in Egyptian hieroglyphs or “radicals” in Chinese) that serves to clarify the meaning of a particular logogram. Scripts can also use phonetic complements to give clues as to the intended interpretation of a logogram.

Advantages of logographic systems

One of the clearest advantages to the use of logographic symbols or characters is their universality. This can be seen in mathematics, where mathematical formulas and problems can be easily understood by mathematicians from any country.

This advantage is also evident in China, where hundreds of spoken dialects make use of the same (or similar) written language. Chinese who speak different dialects may not understand each other through speech, but can communicate effectively through writing. Even Japanese and Korean people, familiar with a smaller set of Chinese characters, can achieve better communication among their different cultures through the use of these logograms.

Disadvantages of logographic systems

Logographic writing systems have clear disadvantages as well, one of the most obvious being that they are more time consuming to learn. Instead of the small number of letters that constitute a phonetic alphabet, logographic writing systems require the memorization of a large group of logograms. Also, while most logographic languages have phonetic components, the pronunciation of a word is generally dependent on the reader knowing the meaning of a particular logographic symbol. Words in many alphabetic writing systems such as Italian can be sounded out if they are not known to the reader; this cannot be done in more logographic languages like Chinese or Japanese.

Logographic characters can also create difficulty with electronic devices. Instead of the reasonably small set of characters that make up most alphabetic systems of writing, logographic scripts like Chinese are much more cumbersome to type. With advances in technology, various methods have been developed for typing logograms: Chinese can be typed on a computer either by breaking a character up into its constituent parts, or by entering a phonetic pronunciation and selecting the correct character from a list.

Notes

  1. Lawrence Lo, “Sumerian,” Ancientscripts.com (2007). Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  2. Rykle Borger, 184 sag, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon, Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  3. Samuel Noah Kramer, Thirty Nine Firsts In Recorded History (University of Pennsylvania, 1998, ISBN 0812212762).
  4. Simon Ager, “Types of Chinese Characters,” Omniglot (2009). Retrieved February 23, 2009.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • DeFrancis, John. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. University of Hawaii Press, 1984. ISBN 0824810686.
  • Hannas, William C. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. |University of Hawaii Press, 1997. ISBN 082481892X.
  • Hoffman, Joel M. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. NYU Press, 2004. ISBN 0814736904.
  • Kramer, Samuel Noah. Thirty Nine Firsts In Recorded History. University of Pennsylvania, 1998. ISBN 0812212762.

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