What is ideogram?

What Does ideogram Mean

An ideogram is the conventional symbol or image that is used to represent an idea , without including words that mean it. Its economy, the speed with which it is perceived and its universality are the main characteristics of these elements.

The peace symbol consisting of a circle with three lines inside is an example of an ideogram. Nowhere in its structure does it include the term "peace" but, by convention and tradition, today anyone who sees it can understand what it represents.
The yin and yang chart , where black and white are combined, is another ideogram. In this case, the symbol allows the representation of the duality that Taoism attributes to what exists in the universe. In general, yin and yang are summarized in the expression "In everything bad there is something good and in everything good there is something bad . "

Confusion often arises between this concept and the pictogram . While the ideogram is the representation of an idea, the pictogram appeals to a drawing to figuratively represent an image. A woman drawn on the door of a bathroom is a pictogram that indicates that the bathroom is for female use.
It should be noted that the notion of pictogram is also used to refer to the symbol used in certain languages that means a phrase, a word or a morpheme, but does not represent a phoneme or a syllable . In Chinese and Japanese, to mention two languages, ideograms of this type are used.
The communication based on this kind of symbols has its advantages and disadvantages. As mentioned in a previous paragraph, the economy when drawing them is one of its clear advantages: in most cases, it is much easier and faster to draw an ideogram than to write the sentence to which it refers. If we take up the drawing of a woman in the doorway of a public bathroom, it goes without saying that this graphic is considerably simpler and requires fewer strokes than the phrase "Bathroom for the exclusive use of women."
Another advantage of ideograms is that they can be learned and understood by people of all ages and, even more importantly, from all over the world regardless of the language they speak. Linguistic differences are one of the least possible barriers to penetrate for our species, and this can make an experience abroad especially hard for someone who wants to build a better future based on work and effort. There are many cases of immigrants who do not know a word of the local language, but at least it is possible that they understand certain posters thanks to the use of ideograms.

In the case of children, as they generally learn to read and write reaching the age of five, their first relationship with the written language is usually through logos and ideograms . It is common for very young children to recognize their favorite brand logos before they can read, even if they are made up of words.
On the other hand are the disadvantages of ideograms. Although it seems contradictory to what has been said above, in the absence of knowledge of a given ideogram, it may be easier to understand the sentence to which it refers. Let's not forget that not all of them are for international use and that some may be very typical of a particular region: if we arrive in a foreign country whose language we speak fluently but we do not know an ideogram that has become fashionable recently, it is likely that We do not understand it even if we know how to say the phrase it represents.

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