Glossary for Geospatial Science

ideograph:  A symbol that represents meaning without indicating pronunciation.  Often opposed to “phonetic.” Chinese is often, but erroneously, called an ideographic language.  Its origins (like those of Western alphabets) were ideographic and pictographic, but it is more accurately described as a “morphosyllabic:” a combination of syllabic characters with nonphonetic techniques, such as determinatives, to suggest the meaning category of written items.