Editing 1709: Inflection
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
| Latest revision | Your text | ||
| Line 95: | Line 95: | ||
Cueball then asks ''Could that mean that English writing might be ripe to become more pictographic?'' Instead of using traditional words, Megan replies with three {{w|emojis}} "Thumbs up" (like), "Applause", and a smiley โ thus showing a pictographic version of the writing which has become more popular in the last years. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurring theme]] on xkcd. | Cueball then asks ''Could that mean that English writing might be ripe to become more pictographic?'' Instead of using traditional words, Megan replies with three {{w|emojis}} "Thumbs up" (like), "Applause", and a smiley โ thus showing a pictographic version of the writing which has become more popular in the last years. Emoji has become a [[:Category:Emoji|recurring theme]] on xkcd. | ||
| โ | The writing systems of many languages have both {{w|pictographic}} and {{w|ideographic}} origins. "Pictographic" means that they are pictures of some thing that will remind the reader of either the pronunciation or the meaning of the word. The letter | + | The writing systems of many languages have both {{w|pictographic}} and {{w|ideographic}} origins. "Pictographic" means that they are pictures of some thing that will remind the reader of either the pronunciation or the meaning of the word. The letter 'A', for example, originated from a word meaning "ox", but was meant to remind readers of the glottal stop (it wasn't until the Ancient Greeks, who didn't have the glottal stop as a distinct phoneme, got a hold of the Phoenician version that it was transferred to the vowel(s) it is today). "Ideographic" means that they are designed, through pictures, to illustrate some idea. An example would be a "No Smoking" sign, where a red circle with a diagonal line is an abstract representation of "no". In fact, the three emojis used in the third panel of this cartoon are all ideographic, not pictographic, under this definition. "Thumbs up" (like), "Applause", and the smiley, are all emojis that remind us of a concept of approval. |
{{w|Egyptian hieroglyphics}} contain many pictorial elements, some of which are pictographic in the sense that they are meant to represent the thing that they picture, but many are more abstract (ideographic) or are used for their {{w|phonetic}} value (as "A" was used in early alphabetic systems). Similarly, in the {{w|Chinese character}} writing system, many of the elements have pictographic or ideographic origins; but they are often, and even usually combined in ways that are phonetic and not related to the pictures that were the origins of the characters. | {{w|Egyptian hieroglyphics}} contain many pictorial elements, some of which are pictographic in the sense that they are meant to represent the thing that they picture, but many are more abstract (ideographic) or are used for their {{w|phonetic}} value (as "A" was used in early alphabetic systems). Similarly, in the {{w|Chinese character}} writing system, many of the elements have pictographic or ideographic origins; but they are often, and even usually combined in ways that are phonetic and not related to the pictures that were the origins of the characters. | ||
