Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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INTRODUCTION
Ideographic Writing This is a highly developed picture-writing, being a pictorial representation of ideas to be conveyed from one person to another. In this system, the pictographs represent not so much the things they show as the underlying idea associated with those things. Thus, a circle might
AUDZ LAVENERA ALETTES
Petition
for fisknow the
Fig. 13-Interesting ideographic document of North American Indians, Petition sent by a group of seven Indian tribes (represented by totems) to the U.S. Congress for fishing rights in some lakes. The lines connecting the eyes and hearts of the animals show that the seven tribes are of one mind with the leading tribe, the Oshcabuwis (represented by the crane); the line connecting the eye of the latter with the lakes in question (at the bottom, left-hand side), and that which
runs towards the Congress, indicate the demands of the tribes
represent not only the sun, but also heat or light or a god associated with the sun, or the word "day." Similarly, an animal might be depicted not only by a picture of the animal, but also by a sketch of an animal's head, and the idea "to go" by two lines representing legs. The symbols employed in
Fig. 14–Symbolic proverbs of the Ewe (West African people) 1, "Needle sews big cloth"_"little things produce great results." 2, Needle and cotton:
cotton follow needle"-"ons follow their father." 3. Two adversaries with bows and arrows-"two enemies cannot hold the field"-"one must yield." 4. Man between the world (represented in the form of a nut) and tree, meaning the world is a baobab "the world cannot be bent round, encompassed, changed, transformed." 5. The Ewe
pictograph for 1: Man indicating himself or holding his hand on his breast
ideographic writings are called ideographs, that is symbols representing ideas.
Simple ideographs are nearly the same in many primitive scripts. For instance, an eye with tears dropping from it, as the symbol representing sorrow, is to be seen not only in a crude rock-painting of California, but
