Phonogram

A phonogram is a grapheme that represents a phoneme or a combination of phonemes.

Examples of phonograms are the letters of the Latin alphabet , the kana of the Japanese script or the symbols of the IPA phonetic spelling .

In contrast to phonograms, logograms represent units of meaning ( i.e. morphemes or whole words ), while determinatives are silent characters that are used to mark semantic categories .

There are also logophonograms and phonologograms. In the shorthand spelling 'N8' for 'night', the number '8' is initially a logogram for the word 'eight', and this in turn is a phonogram for the phoneme sequence / ax /. The number 2 is often used in net jargon because it stands as a phonogram for the phonemes / tu: /, which in turn represent the homophones 'to' and 'too' ("2young2die").

see also : Phonography (linguistics)