Logograms

Logograms are writing signs that represent words or meaningful morphemes rather than phonetic sounds. The term comes from Greek roots meaning “word writing.” In a logographic system, a single symbol can convey the entire word or a base unit of meaning, though many scripts also include phonetic or grammatical signs.

Logograms are distinguished from phonograms, which convey sound, and from determinatives, which indicate category or semantic field without adding pronunciation. In many scripts, logograms co-exist with other sign types.

Throughout history, several ancient writing systems used logograms as core components. Chinese characters are the best-known example, with most characters corresponding to a morpheme that can be a word on its own or combine with others. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform likewise included substantial logograms, sometimes read as words or semantic categories; later cuneiform developed complex sign inventories with syllabic and phonetic values. The Mayan script combined logographic signs with syllabic glyphs, allowing words and morphemes to be written with a mix of signs.

In linguistic typology, logograms are contrasted with phonograms and with ideograms; an ideogram denotes a concept rather than a specific word, though the distinction often overlaps in historical terms. The modern use of logograms persists primarily in national writing systems that rely on logographic elements (notably Chinese) and in mixed systems like Japanese, where kanji are logographic but combined with syllabic scripts. Although efficient for conveying concepts, logograms can pose pronunciation challenges across dialects and time periods.