What is another word for ideographic?

Pronunciation: [ˌɪdɪəɡɹˈafɪk] (IPA)

Ideographic refers to a system of writing that uses symbols or visual representations for concepts and ideas instead of words or letters. Some synonyms for the word ideographic include pictographic, hieroglyphic, glyphic, iconographic, and symbolic. Pictographic implies the use of pictures to represent ideas, while hieroglyphic specifically refers to the ancient Egyptian system of writing using pictorial symbols. Glyphic is a more general term that refers to any writing system that uses symbols or glyphs, while iconographic emphasizes the use of symbols to represent religious or cultural concepts. Finally, symbolic is a broader term that can refer to any type of representation using symbols, not just written language.

Usage examples for Ideographic

Symbolic images are: In the visual order, written words, ideographic signs, etc.
"Essay on the Creative Imagination"
Th. Ribot
The inference that the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians were thus produced, is confirmed by the fact that the picture-writing of the Mexicans was found to have given birth to a like family of ideographic forms; and among them, as among the Egyptians, these had been partially differentiated into the kuriological or imitative, and the tropical or symbolic; which were, however, used together in the same record.
"Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I"
Herbert Spencer
These were ornamented with ideographic devices of a historical and religious character.
"The Log School-House on the Columbia"
Hezekiah Butterworth

Famous quotes with Ideographic

  • It is significant that nothing resembling Platonism arose in China. Classical Chinese script is not ideographic, as used to be thought; but because of what A.C. Graham terms its 'combination of graphic wealth with phonetic poverty' it did not encourage the kind of abstract thinking that produced Plato's philosophy. Plato was what historians of philosophy call a realist - he believed that abstract terms designated spiritual or intellectual entities. In contrast, throughout its long history, Chinese thought has been nominalist - it has understood that even the most abstract terms are only labels, names for the diversity of things in the world. As a result, Chinese thinkers have rarely mistaken ideas for facts. Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. Wars have been fought and tyrannies established, cultures have been ravaged and peoples exterminated in the service of these abstractions. Europe owes much of its murderous history to errors of thinking engendered by the alphabet.
    John Gray (philosopher)

Related words: character based writing, ideographic language, chinese ideographs, how to read ideographs, how to write ideographs, how to type with ideographs

Related questions:

  • Do ideographs have symbols?
  • What are the symbols for each ideograph?
  • What is a word made up of in ideographs?
  • How do you pronounce ideographs?
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