Does “hieroglyph” only refer to the ancient Egyptian form of writing or to any writing system whose basic elements represent words?
Should Chinese and Japanese characters be called hieroglyphs? There are no hieroglyphic writing systems? Or are some people who said Hieroglyphs only refers to Ancient Egyptian writing?
I know there are quite a few other words used for Chinese and Japanese characters (han character, hanja, hanzi, ideogram, ideograph, kanji, pictogram, pictograph, sinogram, sinograph…). I know that those characters used to be used in Korea and Vietnam, but I don’t want to get sidetracked and focus on the applicability of this term, not whether there are more words or less ambiguous or more precise?
Why Chinese and Japanese characters aren’t hieroglyphs? They are a mixture of pictograms, ideograms, phono-semantic compounds and others. Japanese will also have two phonetic
syllabaries.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
I believe the more general term is logogram and it means a symbol denoting a word (or phrase) rather than a letter. What is a slippery concept.?
I’m happy enough using logogram to include Chinese pictograms as well as various Hieroglyphs. I’m not so comfortable saying hieroglyph includes the Chinese symbols.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
Why Chinese and Japanese characters aren’t hieroglyphs? They are a mixture of pictograms, ideograms, phono-semantic compounds and others. Japanese will also have two phonetic
syllabaries.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the Most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin (“sacred carvings”) and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems.
- Anatolian Hieroglyphs
- Cretan Hieroglyphs
- Olmec Hieroglyphs
And more.
Why Chinese and Japanese characters aren’t hieroglyphs? They are a mixture of pictograms, ideograms, phono-semantic compounds and others. Japanese will also have two phonetic
syllabaries.
