An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.

Examples of ideograms include wayfinding signs such as in airports and other environments where many people may not be familiar with the language of the place they are in as well as Arabic numerals and formal languages (mathematical notation logic UML) which are used worldwide regardless of how they are pronounced in different languages. Other examples include the Blissymbols Nsibidi used by the Igbo and Ekpe in West Africa Emoticons and pictographs as used by the Sioux and Ojibwa. Contents 1 Terminology 1.1 Chinese characters 2 See also 3 References 4 External links Terminology Further information: Character (word) and Logogram

The term "ideogram" is commonly used to describe logographs in writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese characters. All these are incorrect for they're all logogram. Dongba script used without Geba decorating is an example of a real ideogram (it's also a pictogram).

In the history of writing symbols proceeded from ideographic (e.g. an icon of a bull's head in a list inventory denoting that the following numeral refers to head of cattle) to logographic (an icon of a bull denoting the Semitic word lep "ox") to phonetic (the bull's head used as a symbol in rebus writing indicating the glottal stop at the beginning of the word for "ox" viz. the letter Aleph). Bronze Age writing systems used a combination of these applications and many signs in hieroglyphic as well as in cuneiform writing could be used either logographically or phonetically. For example the Akkadian sign AN () could be an ideograph for "deity" an ideogram for the god Anum in particular a logograph for the Akkadian stem il- "deity" a logograph for the Akkadian word amu "sky" or a syllabogram for either the syllable an or il. Chinese characters Main article: Chinese character classification

Chinese characters are often called "ideograms" but since many Chinese characters also have morphemic and often phonetic significance the use of this term is deprecated.1 One alternative is logogram from the Greek roots logos ("word") and grapho ("to write"). Others include Sinogram emphasizing 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 Korean hanja) 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. See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ideogram Asemic writing Energy Systems Language Icon (computing) iConji (an example of an ideographic language) Lexigram Logotype Sona language Traffic sign Isotype (pictograms) Linear B which had an ideographic component References The Ideographic Myth. DeFrancis John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6 DeFrancis John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6 Hannas William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1892-X (paperback); ISBN 0-8248-1842-3 (hardcover) Unger J. Marshall. 2003. Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning. ISBN 0-8248-2760-0 (trade paperback) ISBN 0-8248-2656-6 (hardcover) External links AIGA Symbol Signs Common US ideograms. American Heritage Dictionary definition Encyclopedia Britannica online entry The Ideographic Myth Extract from DeFrancis' book. Merriam-Webster OnLine definition Ojibwa and Sioux pictographs A website explaining the ideographic origins of Chinese Pictopen: A Modern Pictographic Writing System  Links to related articles v d eVisualization of technical information Fields Biological data visualization  Chemical imaging  Crime mapping  Data visualization  Educational visualization  Flow visualization  Geovisualization  Information visualization  Mathematical visualization  Medical imaging  Molecular graphics  Product visualization  Scientific visualization  Software visualization  Technical drawing  Visual culture  Volume visualization Image types Chart  Computer graphics  Diagram  Graph of a function  Engineering drawing  Ideogram  Information graphics  Map  Photograph  Pictogram  Plot  Statistical graphics  Table  Technical drawings  Technical illustration Experts Jacques Bertin  Stuart Card  Thomas A. DeFanti  Michael Friendly  Nigel Holmes  Alan MacEachren  Jock D. Mackinlay  Michael Maltz  Bruce H. McCormick  Charles Joseph Minard  Otto Neurath  William Playfair  Clifford A. Pickover  Arthur H. Robinson  Lawrence J. Rosenblum  Adolphe Quetelet  George G. Robertson  Ben Shneiderman  Edward Tufte Related topics Cartography  Computer graphics  Graph drawing  Graphic design  Imaging science  Information science  Mental visualisation  Neuroimaging  Scientific modelling  Spatial analysis  Visual analytics  Visual perception v d eWriting systems Overview History of writing  History of the alphabet  Graphemes  Scripts in Unicode Lists Writing systems  Languages by writing system / by first written account  Undeciphered writing systems  Inventors of writing systems Types Featural alphabets  Alphabets  Abjads  Alphasyllabaries / Abugidas  Syllabaries  Semi-syllabaries  Ideogrammic  Pictographic  Logographic  Numeral