Editing Ideogram (section)

== History ==
{{See also|History of writing}}
As true [[writing system]]s emerged from systems of pure ideograms, later societies with phonetic writing were often compelled by the intuitive connection between pictures, diagrams and [[logogram]]s—though ultimately ignorant of the latter's necessary phonetic dimension. Greek speakers began regularly visiting Egypt during the 7th century&nbsp;BC.{{sfnp|Westerfeld|2019|p=23}} [[Ancient Greek]] writers generally mistook the Egyptian writing system to be purely ideographic. According to tradition, the Greeks had acquired the ability to write, among other things, from the Egyptians through [[Pythagoras]] ({{circa|570|495&nbsp;BC}}), who had been directly taught their silent form of "symbolic teaching".{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|pp=43–45}} Beginning with [[Plato]] (428–347&nbsp;BC), the conception of hieroglyphs as ideograms was rooted in a broader [[Philosophical language|philosophical]] conception of most language as an imperfect and obfuscatory image of reality. The [[views of Plato]] involved an [[ontologically]] separate [[world of forms]], but those of his student [[Aristotle]] (384–322&nbsp;BC) instead saw the forms as abstracts, identical in the mind of every person.{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|pp=32–34}} For both, ideography was a more perfect representation of the forms possessed by the Egyptians. The Aristotelian framework would be the foundation for the conception of language in the Mediterranean world into the medieval era.{{sfnmp|Westerfeld|2019|1p=18|O'Neill|2016|2pp=18–20}}

According to the classical theory, because ideographs directly reflected the forms, they were the only "true language",{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|pp=38–40}} and had the unique ability to communicate arcane wisdom to readers.{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|pp=18–20, 32–34, 46–50}} The ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphs had been lost during late antiquity, in the context of the country's Hellenization and Christianization. However, the traditional notion that the latter trends compelled the abandonment of hieroglyphic writing has been rejected by recent scholarship.{{sfnp|Westerfeld|2019|p=32}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Houston |first1=Stephen |last2=Baines |first2=John |last3=Cooper |first3=Jerrold |title=Last Writing: Script Obsolescence in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=45 |issue=3 |year=2003 |issn=0010-4175 |jstor=3879458 |pages=441–444 |doi=10.1017/S0010417503000227 |doi-broken-date=3 March 2025}}</ref>

Europe only became fully acquainted with [[written Chinese]] near the end of the 16th century, and initially related the system to their existing framework of ideography as partially informed by Egyptian hieroglyphs.{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|p=1}} Ultimately, [[Jean-François Champollion]]'s successful [[decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts|decipherment of hieroglyphs]] in 1823 stemmed from an understanding that they did represent spoken [[Egyptian language]], as opposed to being purely ideographic. Champollion's insight in part stemmed from his familiarity with the work of French sinologist [[Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat]] regarding ''[[fanqie]]'', which demonstrated that Chinese characters were often used to write sounds, and not just ideas.{{sfnp|O'Neill|2016|pp=5–6}}

=== Proposed universal languages ===
{{See also|Pasigraphy}}
Inspired by these conceptions of ideography, several attempts have been made to design a universal written language—i.e., an ideography whose interpretations are accessible to all people with no regard to the languages they speak. An early proposal was made in 1668 by [[John Wilkins]] in ''[[An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language]]''. More recently, [[Blissymbols]] was devised by [[Charles K. Bliss]] in 1949, and currently includes over 2,000 graphs.{{sfnp|Unger|2003|pp=13–16}}