semantogram
English
editEtymology
editFrom 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
editsemantogram (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.