Pictorial font

In a picture script or pictographic script , the characters of the script are pictures.

The simplest type of picture writing uses pictograms in which the meaning of the picture can be derived directly from the picture. A universal pictorial writing is created when the pictures are given transferred meanings in addition to the illustrative meaning. ( Ideogram ).

Examples of picture fonts in different cultures are:

Plate in Proto-Elamite script

• Proto-Elamite pictorial writing

• Delawarian hieroglyphic writing
• Dongba of the Naxi
• Isotype - Viennese method of picture statistics by the Austrian people and workers' educator Otto Neurath .

The following writing systems have developed from picture fonts:

• Cuneiform
• Egyptian hieroglyphics (e.g. a "house" is often called a house shown)
• Chinese letters

See also

• Phonetic spelling
• Syllabary

literature

• Peter Gallmann : Graphic elements of the written language. Basis for a reform of the orthography . Niemeyer: Tübingen, 1985, ISBN 3-484-31060-X , ( Series German Linguistics 60).
• Harald Haarmann : Universal history of writing . Campus, Frankfurt am Main, New York 1990, ISBN 3-593-34346-0 (This manual also goes into picture fonts.).
• Manfred Kohrt : Problem history of the grapheme concept and the early phoneme concept . Niemeyer: Tübingen, 1985, ISBN 3-484-31061-8 , ( Series German Linguistics 61).

Web links

Wiktionary: Pictorial writing  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• The phonetic picture writing, phonetic and picture writing at the same time