Heterogram (

classical compound Neoclassical compounds are compound words composed from combining forms (which act as affixes or stems) derived from Classical_language#Classical_studies, classical languages (classical Latin or ancient Greek) root (linguistics), roots. Neo-Lati ...

: " different" + "

written Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

") is a term used mostly in the

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

of Akkadian, and Pahlavi texts containing borrowings from Sumerian and Aramaic respectively. It refers to a special type of

logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'idea' + 'to write') is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonogram (linguistics), phono ...

borrowed from another language (in which it may have been either ideographic or phonetic) to represent either a sound or meaning in the matrix language. It is now commonly accepted that they do not represent true borrowings from the embedded language and instead came to represent a separate register of orthographic archaisms. As an example in English - the written abbreviations ''

e.g. Eg or EG may refer to: In arts and media * ''E.G.'' (EP), an EP by Goodshirt * ''EG'' (magazine), a journal dedicated to chess endgame studies * Eg White (born 1966), a British musician, songwriter and producer * E.G. Records, a music record ...

'', '' i.e.'', and ''

viz. The abbreviation ''viz.'' (or ''viz'' without a full stop) is short for the Latin , which itself is a contraction of the Latin phrase ''videre licet'', meaning "it is permitted to see". It is used as a synonym for "namely", "that is to say", "t ...

'' are sometimes read respectively as "for example", "that is", and "namely". When read this way, the abbreviations for the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

phrases ''exempli gratia'', ''id est'', and ''videlicet'' are being used logographically to indicate English phrases which are rough translations. Similarly, the

ampersand The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the grammatical conjunction, conjunction "and". It originated as a typographic ligature, ligature of the letters of the word (Latin for "and"). Etymology Tradi ...

⟨&⟩, originally a

ligature Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

for the Latin word '' et'', in many European languages stands logographically for the local word for "and" regardless of pronunciation. This can be contrasted with the older way of abbreviating ''

et cetera ''Et cetera'' (, ), abbreviated to ''etc.'', ''et cet.'', ''&c.'' or ''&c'', is a Latin expression that is used in English to mean "and all the rest". "&" is a ligature of "et." Translated literally from Latin, can mean , while can mean ; th ...

''—'' &c.''—where ⟨&⟩ is used to represent ''et'' as a full

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

, not a heterogram. Heterograms are frequent in

cuneiform script Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

s, such as the Akkadian cuneiform, which uses Sumerian heterograms, or the Anatolian cuneiform, which uses both Sumerian and Akkadian heterograms.Kudrinski M. and I. Yakubovich. 2016. Sumerograms and Akkadograms in Hittite: Ideograms, Logograms, Allograms, or Heterograms? ''Altorientalische Forschungen'' 43(1-2): 53-66. In

Middle Iranian The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...

scripts derived from the

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

scripts (such as the

Pahlavi scripts Pahlavi may refer to: Iranian royalty * Seven Parthian clans, ruling Parthian families during the Sasanian Empire * Pahlavi dynasty, the ruling house of Imperial State of Persia/Iran from 1925 until 1979 ** Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878–1944), Shah ...

), all logograms are heterograms coming from

.Encyclopedia Iranica
Huswāreš
Sometimes such heterograms are referred to by terms identifying the source language such as "

Sumerogram A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian, Eblaite, or Hittite. Th ...

s" or "Aramaeograms". Another example is

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, literally " Sinograms" or "Han characters".

References

{{Reflist Communication design Graphic design Pictograms Writing systems Multilingualism

See also

References