Editing Logogram (section)

==Types of logographic systems==
Some of the earliest recorded writing systems are logographic; the first historical civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica all used some form of logographic writing.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/writing/History-of-writing-systems |title=Writing – History of writing systems |website=Britannica |access-date=10 April 2022}}</ref><ref>Cuneiform was kind of a logography.</ref>

All logographic scripts ever used for [[natural languages]] rely on the [[Rebus#Rebus principle|rebus principle]] to extend a relatively limited set of logograms: A subset of characters is used for their phonetic values, either consonantal or syllabic. The term '''logosyllabary''' is used to emphasize the partially phonetic nature of these scripts when the phonetic domain is the syllable. In Ancient Egyptian [[hieroglyph]]s, Ch'olti', and in Chinese, there has been the additional development of [[determinative]]s, which are combined with logograms to narrow down their possible meaning. In Chinese, they are fused with logographic elements used phonetically; such "[[radical (Chinese character)|radical]] and phonetic" characters make up the bulk of the script. Ancient Egyptian and Chinese relegated the active use of rebus to the spelling of foreign and dialectical words.

=== Logoconsonantal ===
Logoconsonantal scripts have graphemes that may be extended phonetically according to the consonants of the words they represent, ignoring the vowels. For example, Egyptian <hiero>G38</hiero> was used to write both ''sȝ'' 'duck' and ''sȝ'' 'son', though it is likely that these words were not pronounced the same except for their consonants. The primary examples of logoconsonantal scripts are [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]], [[hieratic]], and [[Demotic (Egyptian)|demotic]]: [[Egyptian language|Ancient Egyptian]].

=== Logosyllabic ===
Logosyllabic scripts have [[graphemes]] which represent morphemes, often polysyllabic morphemes, but when extended phonetically represent single syllables. They include cuneiform, [[Anatolian hieroglyphs]], [[Cretan hieroglyphs]], [[Linear A]] and [[Linear B]], [[Chinese characters]], [[Maya script]], [[Aztec script]], [[Mixtec writing|Mixtec script]], and the first five phases of the [[Bamum script]].

===Others===

A peculiar system of logograms developed within the [[Pahlavi scripts]] (developed from the [[abjad]] of [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]]) used to write [[Middle Persian]] during much of the [[Sassanid Empire|Sassanid period]]; the logograms were composed of letters that spelled out the word in [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]] but were pronounced as in Persian (for instance, the combination ''{{lang|arc-Latn|m-l-k}}'' would be pronounced "shah"). These logograms, called {{lang|arc-Latn|[[Frahang-i Pahlavig|hozwārishn]]}} (a form of [[Heterogram (linguistics)|heterograms]]), were dispensed with altogether after the [[Muslim conquest of Persia|Arab conquest of Persia]] and the adoption of a [[Perso-Arabic script|variant]] of the [[Arabic alphabet]].{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}