| |
|
|
What's the difference between pictographs and an alphabet? |
|
|
Pictographs (cuneiform, hieroglyphs, Chinese ideographs) stood for either entire words or syllables. Pictographic writing systems used hundreds of signs, so they were hard to learn. Only a few elite scribes learned to read and write these languages.
|
|
|
|
| This Chinese ideograph is the symbol for the word "look." | 
|
|
|
|
|
|
| An alphabet is easier to learn and use. Someone realized that written symbols (letters) could stand for sounds rather than objects. Humans make about 40 different sounds, so an alphabet only needed 40 letters or less to represent the languages that people speak. Developing an alphabet made reading and writing easier and accessible to more people.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
