Editing Phonetic complement (section)

{{short description|Pronunciation guide accompanying logographic writing}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2019}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2019}}

A '''phonetic complement''' is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters ([[logogram]]s) that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as [[Egyptian hieroglyph]]s, [[cuneiform script|Akkadian cuneiform]], [[Linear B]], [[Japanese writing system|Japanese]], and [[Maya script|Mayan]]. Often they disambiguate an [[ideogram]] by spelling out the first or last syllable of the word; occasionally (as in Linear B) they may instead abbreviate an adjective that modifies the logogram.

Written English has few logograms, primarily numerals, and therefore few phonetic complements. An example is the ''nd'' of ''2nd'' 'second', which avoids ambiguity with 2 standing for the word 'two'. In addition to numerals, other examples include [[Xmas]], [[Xianity]], and [[wikt:xing#English|Xing]] for [[Christmas]], [[Christianity]], and Crossing – note the separate readings ''Christ'' and ''Cross''.