Languages and Writing Systems
Ideographic scripts (in which graphemes are ideograms representing concepts or ideas, rather than a specific word in a language), and pictographic scripts (in which the graphemes are iconic pictures) are not thought to be able to express all that can be communicated by language, as argued by the linguists John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger.
Essentially, they postulate that no full writing system can be completely pictographic or ideographic; it must be able to refer directly to a language in order to have the full expressive capacity of a language.
Although a few pictographic or ideographic scripts exist today, there is no single way to read them, because there is no one-to-one correspondence between symbol and language. Hieroglyphs were commonly thought to be ideographic before they were translated, and to this day Chinese is often erroneously said to be ideographic. In some cases of ideographic scripts, only the author of a text can read it with any certainty, and it may be said that they are interpreted rather than read. Such scripts often work best as mnemonic aids for oral texts, or as outlines that will be fleshed out in speech.
Aztec – Nahuatl – Although some proper nouns have phonetic components.
Mixtec – Mixtec
Dongba – Naxi – Although this is often supplemented with syllabic Geba script.
Ersu Shābā – Ersu
Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing – Míkmaq – Does have phonetic components, however.
Nsibidi – Ekoi, Efik/Ibibio, Igbo
Testerian – used for missionary work in Mexico
Other Mesoamerican writing systems with the exception of Maya Hieroglyphs.
There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language, or to represent constructed languages. Some of these are
Blissymbols – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
iConji – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking
Isotype (picture language)
Sona language
A wide variety of notations
Linear B and Asemic writing also incorporate ideograms.
