semantogram

English

Etymology

From semanto- +‎ -gram, thus literally "meaning-drawing."

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈmæn.tə.ɡɹæm/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /səˈmæn.tə.ɡɹæm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: se‧man‧to‧gram

Noun

semantogram (plural semantograms)

1. A symbol used solely for meaning, as when logographic Chinese symbols are used to represent the meaning of native Japanese words.
   • 1978, Herbert Franke, Dennis Twitchett, “Introduction”, in The Cambridge History of China‎^[1], →ISBN, page 32:

     "the majority of Jurchen signs, which included both semantograms and phonograms, were inventions."

   • 2003, Marc Hideo Miyake, Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction, →ISBN:

     One could write OJ namyi ‘wave’ with the sinograph for a Chinese morpheme of similar meaning: 波 EMC *pa ‘wave.’ 波 *pa ‘wave’ would then be a semantogram for OJ namyi, serving as a translation of OJ namyi without representing its sound.

Synonyms

• semantograph
• ideograph

Related terms

• logogram
• phonogram