semantogram
English edit
Etymology edit
From semanto- + -gram, thus literally "meaning-drawing."
Pronunciation edit
- IPA(key): /sɪˈmæn.tə.ɡɹæm/
- (weak vowel merger) IPA(key): /səˈmæn.tə.ɡɹæm/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Hyphenation: se‧man‧to‧gram
Noun edit
semantogram (plural semantograms)
- A symbol used solely for meaning, as when logographic Chinese symbols are used to represent the meaning of native Japanese words.
- 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.