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Ideograms that represent physical objects by visually resembling 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 et.
A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto [1]) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a writing system [2] which uses pictograms.
The first two types are "single-body", meaning that the character was created independently of other characters. "Single-body" pictograms and ideograms make up only a small proportion of Chinese logograms. More productive for the Chinese script were the two "compound" methods, i.e. the character was created from assembling different characters.
Pictograms, in turn, evolved into ideograms, graphical symbols that represent an idea. Their ancestors, the pictograms, could represent only something resembling their form: therefore a pictogram of a circle could represent a sun, but not concepts like 'heat', 'light', 'day' or 'Great God of the Sun'.
Ideographic scripts (in which graphemes are ideograms representing concepts or ideas rather than a specific word in a language) and pictographic scripts (in which the graphemes are iconic pictures) are not thought to be able to express all that can be communicated by language, as argued by the linguists John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger.
However, the barrier between a character's pronunciation and meaning is never total: when transcribing into Chinese, loangraphs are often chosen deliberately as to create certain connotations. This is regularly done with corporate brand names: for example, Coca-Cola's Chinese name is 可口可乐; 可口可樂 (Kěkǒu Kělè; 'delicious ...
The DOT pictograms are a set of fifty pictograms used to convey information useful to travelers without using words. Such images are often used in airports, train stations, hotels, and other public places for foreign tourists, as well as being easier to identify than strings of text.
Comparative evolution from pictograms to abstract shapes, in cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters. Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning: in this instance, logograms are being spoken (or ideograms) and semagrams (the latter are also called determinatives). [clarification needed] [37]