Pictographic characters are a relatively old kind of characters, which are evolved from pictographic characters. They are purely used to write characters. With the continuous development of history, the pictographic nature of pictographic characters has been weakened and the symbolic nature has been strengthened. There are many common pictographic characters, such as "sun", "horse", "eye", "cloud", etc.
The difference between hieroglyphics and ideograms
Pictographs and ideograms are two different writing systems, and their difference lies in the way in which languages are recorded.
The hieroglyphics, such as the holy book characters in ancient Egypt, are a kind of picture characters, and each character is like the image of an object. It attempts to express meaning directly with graphics, rather than relying on voice. There is no fixed syllable or grammatical relationship between the words of hieroglyphics, so readers need to understand the meaning and usage of each word to understand the meaning of the text.
Ideographs, such as Chinese characters, express concepts or meanings through symbols. Although many Chinese characters are also based on pictographs, they do not directly represent the image of objects, but rather represent concepts or meanings. Unlike pictographs, ideograms do not rely on pronunciation, but express language through the agreed relationship between symbols and meanings.
In general, the main difference between hieroglyphs and ideograms lies in their relationship with language. Pictographs directly express the image of objects, while ideograms express concepts or meanings.
What are the three types of hieroglyphs
Oracle, ancient Egyptian, cuneiform, Mayan origin, Dongba, Shuishu, Naxi, etc.
1. Oracle bone inscriptions are a kind of ancient Chinese characters, also called "Qiwen", "Oracle bone inscriptions", Yin Ruins characters or "tortoiseshell animal bone inscriptions". It is an early form of Chinese characters and a mature character existing in the Shang Dynasty of China. It was first unearthed in Yin Ruins, Anyang City, Henan Province.
2. Dongba characters are pictographic characters with ideographic and phonographic elements. Its character form is very primitive, even more primitive than that of oracle bone inscriptions. It belongs to the early form of the origin of characters, but it can also be recorded and preserved completely.
3. National characters - Naxi, the characters used by the Naxi people in China. There were two kinds of characters: one was ideographic characters called Dongba characters; The other is the phonetic syllabic characters called Goba. Many poems, legends, stories and religious classics were recorded in these words, but they were not popularized among the masses.
Is hieroglyph the oldest character
Dongba characters are the oldest hieroglyphs. Chinese characters are one of the oldest characters in the world. Cuneiform script is the oldest script in the known world. It is a unique script system invented by the ancient Sumerians and inherited and transformed by the Akkadians.
The Egyptians used pictorial hieroglyphics around 3500 BC, and the Phoenicians invented alphabets more than 1000 BC.