Before the Western alphabet was established, a number of less optimal writing systems (cuneiform, hieroglyphics, etc.
The same heuristic strategy can be applied to the development of literacy.
In the universe of ideographic languages (such as Chinese and Japanese), the mediating function of images constituting the written is different.
Chinese ideographic writing, which unifies the many dialects used in spoken Chinese, preserves concreteness, and as such preserves tradition as an established way of relating to the world.
Alphabetic writing, although more simple and stabilized, is really more difficult than ideographic writing.
European writing and Oriental ideographic writing have each participated in this process of defining logic, rhetoric, heuristics, and dialectics.
Some of the conventions of the emerging film are cultural accomplishments, probably comparable to the convention of ideographic writing.
Monoarticulated speech (signaling), as well as ideographic writing, result from experiences involving the pragmatic-affective level of existence.
Readers ofideographic texts have the advantage of the concreteness of the representation.
There are few examples of the aboriginal ideographic writings left to us.
But for the reason stated it had to be discontinued, and a return made to the earlier ideographic style.
This appears to be true, to some extent, whether we consider the characters ideographic or as, in some sense, phonetic.
This character occurs very seldom, if ever, except as a day symbol, hence it is presumed to be purely ideographic or pictorial.
If Dr Seler is correct in his supposition that the symbol is derived from the plaited mat, then it is most likely simply ideographic or a mere conventional pictograph.
If these glyphs are considered ideographic and not phonetic, it is still possible to give them a reasonable interpretation.
Gesture language is fairly developed, especially as an ideographic mode of communication between tribe and tribe.
Architecture and sculpture had attained there a great perfection, as well as ideographic and iconomatic writing (see p.
But already among the Eskimo, side by side with the simple representation of objects, certain figures are seen to appear denoting action or relations between objects: this is the beginning of ideographic writing.
When documents in the old language, or at least written in the primitive ideographic characters, are attacked, the process is one of divination rather than of translation in the strict sense of the word.
The horror of a curve is pushed so far that even the sun, which is represented by a circle in Egyptian and other ideographic systems, is here a lozenge.
Defn: The system of writing in ideographic characters; also, anything so written.
Defn: The representation of ideas independently of sounds, or in an ideographic manner, as sometimes is done in shorthand writing, etc.
The sign is an ideographic picture of dripping water.
We might give it an ideographic value and connect it with da-da and render “abundant in strength”.
Its employment in the latter manner is especially convenient when complex ideographic or pictorial subjects are to be executed.
Tray of interlaced style of weaving, showing geometric ornament, probably modified by ideographic association.
For the sake of simplicity I exclude from consideration all but purely mechanical or non-ideographic elements.
It is probable, however, that the idea of weaving complex ideographic characters would not occur to the primitive mind at a very early date, and a long period of progress would elapse before delineative subjects would be attempted.
In the more advanced stages of Pueblo art the ornament of nearly all the textiles is pervaded by ideographic characters, generally rude suggestions of life forms, borrowed, perhaps, from mythologic art.
In the ideographic hieroglyphs which were the older--this being the parent writing--the picture of an object expressed the idea of or represented the object itself.
Both the ideographic and the phonetic hieroglyphics are referred to in the following from Professor Hutson: "The ideographs were first pictures pure and simple of actual objects.
In like manner, there was always an imminent and special exposure to error in the "record" with the ideographic hieroglyphic writing.
Ideographic records Ideograms are the mnemonic stage of image writing.
Here we are actually within the ideographic stage, and, as will be shown in due course, handling material identical in character with that found in Egypt and other nations of antiquity.
Penn Wampum] This reference to records which mark a certain approach to the ideographic stage of writing would be incomplete if no account was given of the most celebrated wampum record in existence (fig.
The ideographic signature was in rich old gold, inscribed with unerring decorative instinct on a flat rock surface.
The relief is surmounted by two lines of ideographic inscription.
Another work was a dictionary of Sumerian and Babylonian, in which the pronunciation of the Sumerian is given as well as their ideographic representation.
Non-ideographic forms of ornament may originate in ideographic features, mnemonic, demonstrative, or symbolic.
In the present paper I shall treat chiefly of the non ideographic, reserving the ideographic for a second paper.
The connection is generally beyond the power of divination, and the key to ideographic writing once lost can never be recovered.
It is here that ideographic writing reveals its fatal inferiority.
The relative frequency of the latter marks its advancement from a merely figurative to an ideographic notation.
Ce que je mets sur papier, je remets de ma mémoire" is an expression of old Montaigne which he could never have used had he employed ideographic characters.
At times too a doubt may exist in regard to a name whose bearer was a Semite, whether the signs composing his name represent a phonetic reading or an ideographic compound.
Yet, even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary continued to be a mixture of ideographic and phonetic writing.
The following examples are added to show the ideographic style of pictographs not connected with gestures, lest it may be suspected that an attempt is made to prove that gestures are always included in or connected with them.
It has been found, indeed, that the homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself.
The ancient Mexicans also, to some extent, developed phonetic expressions out of a very elaborate system of ideographic picture writing.
There is, however, a grouping and sequence of the ideographic pictures, an arrangement of signs in connected succession, which may be classed under the scholastic head of syntax.
If no gesture is actually included in all of the foregoing pictographs, it is seen that a gesture sign is made with the same conception which is obvious in the ideographic pictures.
This is more ideographic and convenient than the device of the Abyssinian Galla, reported by M.
When the signs of the Indians have from ideographic form thus become demotic, they may be called conventional, but still not arbitrary.
Where there has existed any form of artistic representation, however rude, and at the same time a system of ideographic gesture signs prevailed, it would be expected that the form of the latter would appear in the former.
The deciphering of this textual residuum is enormously complicated by the character of the Maya glyphs, which for the greater part are ideographic rather than phonetic; that is, the various symbols represent ideas rather than sounds.
And without doubt the greater part of the Maya hieroglyphics were conventional symbols built up on the ideographic principle.
If neither the phonetic nor the ideographic character of the glyphs can be wholly admitted, what then is the true nature of the Maya writing?
It is possible that some characters had a value in Elam not known in Babylonia, or ideographic values not yet recognized.
It is not easy to translate them, because, though many Semitic names occur, there is still a tendency to use the old Sumerian, or ideographic writings.
If so, the signs read Ishtar-KI may perhaps be ideographic also.
There is apparently no feature copied from nature or from ideographic art.
The peculiar character of this design inclines me to the view that it probably had an ideographic origin, although possibly treated here as pure decoration.
I observed a symbolic inscription, in the ideographic manner, on a large blazed pine--the Pinus resinosa.
The occiput of the bear, and head bones of other animals killed in the chase, are hung upon poles at the water's side, with some ideographic signs.
Whether these signs were ideographic or syllabic or alphabetic in the early stages we do not know; certainly they were alphabetic in the later stage.
