Heterogram (

classical compound Neoclassical compounds are compound words composed from combining forms (which act as affixes or stems) derived from classical Latin or ancient Greek roots. New Latin comprises many such words and is a substantial component of the technical an ...

: " different" + "

written Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...

") is a term used mostly in the study of ancient texts for a special kind of a

logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...

consisting of the embedded written representation of a word in a foreign language, which does not have a spoken counterpart in the main (matrix) language of the text. In most cases, the matrix and embedded languages share the same script. While from the perspective of the embedded language the word may be written either phonetically (representing the sounds of the embedded language) or logographically, it is never a phonetic spelling from the point of view of the matrix language of the text, since there is no relationship between the symbols used and the underlying pronunciation of the word in the matrix language. 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 l ...

'', '' 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", "to ...

'' 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 branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

phrases ''exempli gratia'', ''id est'', and ''videlicet'' are being used logographically to indicate English phrases which are rough translations. Similarly, the ampersand ⟨&⟩, originally a

ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

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'' ( or (proscribed) , ), abbreviated to ''etc.'', ''etc'', ''et cet.'', ''&c.'' or ''&c'' is a Latin expression that is used in English to mean "and other similar things", or "and so forth". Translated literally from Latin, means 'an ...

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

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...

, not a heterogram. Heterograms are frequent in cuneiform scripts, such as the Akkadian cuneiform, which uses Sumerian heterograms, or the Anatolian cuneiform, which uses both Sumerian and Akkadian heterograms. In

Middle Iranian The Iranian languages or 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 languages are groupe ...

scripts derived from the

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

scripts (such as the

Pahlavi scripts Pahlavi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are: *the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script; *the incidence of Aramaic words used as heterograms (called '' ...

), 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 or Hittite. Sumerograms are n ...

s" or "Aramaeograms". Another example is

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and 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 ...

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 *

Encyclopedia Iranica An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

Ideographic Writing
Communication design Graphic design Pictograms Writing systems Multilingualism

See also

References