Jean Louis Weltram Lequeux

Writing with ideograms

In the antique times, very few human communities had invented a writing system and codex. It was easier for other human groups around them to adopt an existing scripture than invent new ones, even when their languages shared no or few things in common! It's the case for Korea, Japan and Vietnam, which have adopted ideograms invented for a monosyllabic and tonal language Chinese.

The principle is to use a sign to designate either an object (a thing, an animal, a plant, a human being, etc.) or a concept (an idea, a feeling, etc.). Basically, this scripture is linked neither to the oral word pronounced by the speaker, nor to the variations of the word that are necessary to build a grammatically correct sentence! Of course, the difficulties reside in the number of signs.

So, theoretically whatever the structure of a language, the use of the Chinese ideographical codex is possible, providing the linking grammatical words are provided. Clearly, any native speaker of any Western language may read a Chinese text, in his or her mother language providing he's got the meaning of the signs.

The Japanese Kanji scripting system

It perfectly illustrates the situation. The atonal and polysyllabic Japanese language is at the opposite of the Chinese! If Japan would have been nearer Europe they would have simply adopted the Latin alphabet because it fits perfectly with Japanese – it’s called Romaji. Actually, when Japan adopted the Chinese system of signs (re-baptised Kanji), it was necessary to add a phonetic codex to handle the structure of the Japanese language. Two phonetic systems (called Kana) were created: Katakana and Hiragana (for foreign words).

The Vietnamese Nom scripture

This language belongs to two main branches:

Examples:

Gà for a rooster (Latin Gallus)

Mẹ for mother

Heo means hog

The mark of the future is sẽ (pronounce Shear)

However, their polysyllabic nature disappeared as the Vietnamese reduced them to monosyllabic tonal words, which is the national norm.

Although the Chinese linguistic heritage is reduced to only one part of the “Indochinese” branch, in the 12^th century Vietnam adopted the Chinese ideographic system, and called it Nom Writing. But as soon as they've got a Latin alphabet-based transcription (introduced by Alexander de Rhodes, in the 16th century, using the Portuguese phonetic values of the letters enriched by diacritical accents), they adopted it widely and the Nom Writing System was quickly and definitely abandoned.

From ideograms to logograms and beyond

These two examples show how ideograms could be used in linguistic environments, which are far away from its original area of application. Today, logograms like the road signs are modern versions of systems, which are worldwidely used and easy to understand.

Beyond logograms are the Haiga-Haiku.