Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes (speech sounds) or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.

Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms". Strictly speaking, however, ideograms represent ideas directly rather than words and morphemes, and none of the logographic systems described here are truly ideographic.

Since logograms are visual symbols representing words rather than the sounds or phonemes that make up the word, it is relatively easier to remember or guess the meaning of logograms, while it might be relatively harder to remember or guess the sound of alphabetic written words. Another feature of logograms is that a single logogram may be used by a plurality of languages to represent words with similar meanings. While disparate languages may also use the same or similar alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries and the like, the degree to which they may share identical representations for words with disparate pronunciations is much more limited.