Writing is something that arrived relatively recently in the history of languages – within the past 5,000 years in certain civilisations. All natural languages, including English, began as only spoken languages.
Separate writing systems developed in different parts of the world, and these can be classified as logographic (Gk logos = word; sometimes also called ideographic) or phonographic (Gk phone = sound, voice).
Symbols used in a logographic system are logograms and these can represent morphemes or even entire words. (Morpheme = smallest unit in language which contains meaning, so ‘smallest’ has two morphemes small + est; ‘water-heater’ has three morphemes water + heat + er; ‘saliva’ has one morpheme.) Each logogram is therefore meaningful in at least a minimal way. The ancient cuneiform writings and Egyptian hieroglyphics were logographic, as is Chinese. There are some logoraphic elements even in English such as symbols (&, %, $, £) and Arabic numerals – each symbol is read out differently in different languages.
Symbols used in a phonographic system are phonograms, and each phonogram would represent a phoneme (the smallest unit of sound) or even a syllable. The former system employs an alphabet, and the latter a syllabary. (Note: Singaporeans and Malaysians don’t always make a distinction between alphabet and letters. In this module, following the practice elsewhere, I will use alphabet to refer to the whole writing system such as the Hebrew alphabet or the Latin alphabet. I will use letter to refer to the individual symbol used within an alphabet such as the letter <a> in the Latin alphabet, or the letter <π> in the Greek alphabet. Notice the use of the angle brackets as well.) Some Japanese words can be written using the syllabary.
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