logogram

Grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme

EntityQ138659

Subclass of: grapheme

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

In a written language, a logogram, also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese characters as used in Chinese as well as other languages are logograms, as are Egyptian hieroglyphs and characters in cuneiform script. A writing system that primarily uses logograms is called a logography. Non-logographic writing systems, such as alphabets and syllabaries, are phonemic: their individual symbols represent sounds directly and lack any inherent meaning. However, all known logographies have some phonetic component, generally based on the rebus principle, and the addition of a phonetic component to pure ideographs is considered to be a key innovation in enabling the writing system to adequately encode human language.

Overview

All data

22 statements · 27% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Used by: logographic writing system
Opposite of: phonogram
Different from: phonogram
syllabogram
pictogram
Partially coincident with: hieroglyph
ideogram

On other databases

13 identifiers linking logogram across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

27%

externally sourced

Source last edited August 11, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). logogram (Q138659). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/logogram-Q138659