Reflections on Ideographs

In the Western word, the study of ideographic writings is often impaired by a kind of terminological confusion which is more due to theoretical negligence than to insufficiency in practical knowledge of ideographic languages. In this article, we try to dispel this confusion by examining its origin. Through the examination, we shall make distinction between logogram and ideogram ; the question “when drawing become writing” is to be answered. The classification of ideograms will also be under consideration anew. The last part of this article will be devoted to the distinction between alphabetic systems and ideographic systems.