ideogram
Sign in to saveAn ideogram or ideograph (from Greek + ) is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech and thus are independent of any particular language.) Some ideograms are more arbitrary than others: some are only meaningful assuming preexisting familiarity with some convention; others more directly resemble their signifieds. Ideograms that represent physical objects by visually illustrating them are called pictograms.
AI overview
An ideogram is a symbol in a writing system that represents an idea or concept directly, rather than representing the sounds of speech like regular letters do. They matter because they can communicate meaning across language barriers—some ideograms visually resemble what they represent (called pictograms), while others require familiarity with specific conventions to be understood.
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Article
13 sectionsContents
- Terminology
- Logograms
- Pictograms and indicatives
- Pure signs
- Types
- Mathematical notation
- History
- Proposed universal languages
- See also
- References
- Citations
- Works cited
- Further reading
An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek + ) is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech and thus are independent of any particular language.) Some ideograms are more arbitrary than others: some are only meaningful assuming preexisting familiarity with some convention; others more directly resemble their signifieds. Ideograms that represent physical objects by visually illustrating them are called pictograms. Numerals and mathematical symbols are ideograms, for example ⟨1⟩ 'one', ⟨2⟩ 'two', ⟨+⟩ 'plus', and ⟨=⟩ 'equals'. The ampersand ⟨&⟩ is used in many languages to represent the word and, originally a stylized ligature of the Latin word . Other typographical examples include ⟨§⟩ 'section', ⟨€⟩ 'euro', ⟨£⟩ 'pound sterling', and ⟨©⟩ 'copyright'.
== Terminology ==