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{{Short description|Ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object}} {{more citations needed|date=November 2006}} [[File:National Park Service sample pictographs.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|Sample [[National Park Service]] pictograms]] A '''pictogram''' (also '''pictogramme''', '''pictograph''', or simply '''picto'''<ref>Gove, Philip Babcock. (1993). ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged''. Merriam-Webster Inc. {{ISBN|0-87779-201-1}}.</ref>) is a graphical [[symbol]] that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a [[writing system]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Goody|first=Jack|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/14242868|title=The interface between the written and the oral|date=1987|isbn=0-521-33268-0|location=Cambridge|page=4|oclc=14242868}}</ref> which uses pictograms. Some pictograms, such as [[GHS hazard pictograms|hazard pictograms]], may be elements of [[formal languages]]. In the field of [[prehistoric art]], the term "pictograph" has a different definition, and specifically refers to art painted on rock surfaces. Pictographs are contrasted with [[petroglyph]]s, which are carved or incised. Small pictograms displayed on a [[computer screen]] in order to help the user navigate are called ''[[Icon (computing)|icons]]''. ==Historical== Early written symbols were based on pictograms (pictures which resemble what they signify) and [[ideograms]] (symbols which represent ideas). Ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Chinese civilizations began to adapt such symbols to represent concepts, developing them into [[logogram|logographic writing systems]]. Pictograms are still in use as the main medium of written communication in some non-literate cultures in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania.{{Citation needed|date=November 2019}} Pictograms are often used as simple, pictorial, representational symbols by most contemporary cultures. Pictograms can be considered an art form, or can be considered a written language and are designated as such in [[Pre-Columbian art]], [[Native American art]], Ancient [[Mesopotamia]] and [[Painting in the Americas before Colonization]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pharo|first=Lars Kirkhusmo|url=https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25344|title=Studies in Multilingualism, Lingua Franca and Lingua Sacra|publisher=Edition Open Access Max Planck Institute for the History of Science|year=2018|isbn=9783945561133|editor-last=Braarvig|editor-first=Jens|pages=488|chapter=Multilingualism and Lingua Francae of Indigenous Civilizations of America|hdl=20.500.12657/25344 |editor-last2=Geller|editor-first2=Markham J.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ambrosino|first=Gordon|date=2018-10-20|title=Painted origins: inscribed landscape histories in the Fortaleza pictograph style during the Andean, late pre-Hispanic period|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2019.1612272|journal=World Archaeology|language=en|volume=50|issue=5|pages=804–819|doi=10.1080/00438243.2019.1612272|s2cid=198820112|issn=0043-8243|url-access=subscription}}</ref> One example of many is the [[Rock art of the Chumash people]], part of the [[:Category:Native American history of California|Native American history of California]]. In 2011, UNESCO's World Heritage List added "[[Petroglyph]] Complexes of the Mongolian Altai, Mongolia"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1382|title=Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai|publisher=UNESCO World Heritage Centre|website=WHC.UNESCO.org|date=2011}}</ref> to celebrate the importance of the pictograms engraved in rocks. Some scientists in the field of neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology, such as [[Mario Christian Meyer]], are studying the symbolic meaning of indigenous pictographs and petroglyphs,<ref>{{cite book|url=http://unesdoc.UNESCO.org/images/0006/000678/067843F.pdf|id=ED-85/WS/65|title=Apprentissage de la langue maternelle écrite: étude sur des populations "les moins favorisées" dans une approche interdisciplinaire|first=Mario Christian|last=Meyer|date=December 1985}}</ref> aiming to create new ways of communication between native people and modern scientists to safeguard and valorize their cultural diversity.<ref>{{cite book|title=Amazon Up Close|editor-first=Pamela|editor-last=Bloom|chapter-url=http://www.pisad.bio.br/artigos/amazonupclose_outoftheforest.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317084754/http://www.pisad.bio.br/artigos/amazonupclose_outoftheforest.pdf|archive-date=2012-03-17|chapter=Out Of The Forest & Into The Lab: Amerindian Initiation Into Sacred Science|first=Mario Christian|last=Meyer}}</ref> <gallery> Agawa Rock, panel VIII.jpg|[[Ojibwa]] pictographs on cliff-face at Agawa Rock, [[Lake Superior Provincial Park]] of a boat and [[Mishipeshu]], an animal with horns, painted with red ochre Signatures from the Past.jpg|Several prehistoric engravings can be found around [[La Silla Observatory]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Signatures from the Past|url=https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1705a/|website=ESO.org|publisher=[[European Southern Observatory]]|access-date=30 January 2017|date=30 January 2017}}</ref> GreatGalleryedit.jpg|[[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] pictographs from the Great Gallery, [[Horseshoe Canyon (Utah)|Horseshoe Canyon]], [[Canyonlands National Park]] Water,Rabbit,Deer.jpg|Water, rabbit, deer pictograms on a replica of an [[Aztec]] [[Stone of the Sun]] </gallery> == Modern uses == An early modern example of the extensive use of pictograms may be seen in the map in the London suburban timetables of the [[London and North Eastern Railway]], 1936–1947, designed by [[George Dow]], in which a variety of pictograms was used to indicate facilities available at or near each station. Pictograms remain in common use today, serving as pictorial, representational signs, instructions, or statistical diagrams. Because of their graphical nature and fairly realistic style, they are widely used to indicate public toilets, or places such as airports and train stations. Because they are a concise way to communicate a concept to people who speak many different languages, pictograms have also been used extensively at the [[Olympics]] since the [[1964 Summer Olympics|1964 summer games]] in Tokyo featured designs by {{Interlanguage link|Masaru Katsumi|fr}}. Later Olympic pictograms have been redesigned for each set of games.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://pages.uncc.edu/visualrhetoric/projects/illustration-video/olympic-pictograms/|work=Visual Rhetoric|title=Olympic Pictograms|first1=C. Justin|last1=Hall|first2=Zachary|last2=Allen}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://mediamadegreat.com/olympic-pictograms/|title=Olympic Pictograms: Design through History|work=MediaMadeGreat.com|date=16 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://1stmuse.com/pictograms/|title=Olympic Games Pictograms|website=1stMuse.com|editor-first=John Jan|editor-last=Popovic}}</ref> Pictographic writing as a modernist poetic technique is credited to [[Ezra Pound]], though [[French language|French]] [[surrealism|surrealists]] credit the [[Pacific Northwest]] [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]] of [[Alaska]] who introduced writing, via [[totem pole]]s, to [[North America]].<ref>Reed 2003, p. xix</ref> Contemporary artist [[Xu Bing]] created Book from the Ground, a universal language made up of pictograms collected from around the world. A Book from the Ground chat program has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. [[Emojis]] are a type of pictogram. ==In mathematics== [[File:Titanic casualties.svg|thumb|alt=table with boxes instead of numbers, the amounts and sizes of boxes represent amounts of people|A compound pictogram showing the breakdown of the survivors and deaths of the maiden voyage of the [[RMS Titanic]] by class and age/gender]] In statistics, pictograms are charts in which icons represent numbers to make it more interesting and easier to understand. A key is often included to indicate what each icon represents. All icons must be of the same size, but a fraction of an icon can be used to show the respective fraction of that amount.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/factsheet/ma37grap-e3-f-pictograms|title=Understanding pictograms|website=[[BBC]] — Skillswise|access-date=2014-05-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131229012040/http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/factsheet/ma37grap-e3-f-pictograms|archive-date=2013-12-29}}</ref> {| |-style="vertical-align:top" |style="width:17em" | For example, the following table: {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Day !! Letters sent |- | Monday || 10 |- | Tuesday || 17 |- | Wednesday || 29 |- | Thursday || 41 |- | Friday || 18 |} |can be graphed as follows: {| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Day !! Letters sent |- | Monday || [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=one envelope]] |- | Tuesday || [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=one envelope]] [[File:Image from the Silk icon theme by Mark James half left.svg|alt=and a half]] |- | Wednesday || [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=three envelopes]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] |- | Thursday || [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=four envelopes]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] |- | Friday || [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=two envelopes]] [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=]] |} |- | colspan="2" | <small>Key: [[File:Email Silk.svg|alt=one envelope]] = 10 letters; [[File:Image from the Silk icon theme by Mark James half left.svg|alt=a half envelope]] = 5 letters<br />As the values are rounded to the nearest 5 letters, the second icon on Tuesday is the left half of the original.</small> |} ==Standardization== Pictograms can often transcend languages in that they can communicate to speakers of a number of tongues and language families equally effectively, even if the languages and cultures are completely different. This is why [[Road signs in the United States|road signs]] and similar pictographic material are often applied as global standards expected to be understood by nearly all. A standard set of pictograms was defined in the [[international standard]] ''[[ISO 7001]]: Public Information Symbols''. Other common sets of pictographs are the [[laundry symbols]] used on clothing tags and the [[GHS hazard pictograms|chemical hazard symbols]] as standardized by the [[Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals|GHS system]]. Pictograms have been popularized in use on the Internet and in [[software]], better known as "[[Computer icon|icon]]s" displayed on a computer screen in order to help user navigate a computer system or mobile device. <gallery> road-sign-horse.jpg|A pictographic traffic sign (top) warning motorists of horses and riders Railway pictograms.jpg|[[British Rail]] passenger safety pictograms at the end of the platform at [[Meols railway station]] Piktogramm Schwimmer an der Muenchner Olympia Schwimmhalle.JPG|This highly influential pictogram design was introduced at the [[1972 Munich Olympics]], although pictograms first began to appear in the games at Tokyo in 1964. </gallery> == See also == {{div col|colwidth=22em}} *[[Bouba/kiki effect]] *[[Crop art]] *[[Emoticon]] *[[Emoji]] *[[Icon (computing)]] *[[Ideasthesia]] *[[Ideogram]] *[[List of Stone Age art]] *[[List of symbols]] *{{section link|List of writing systems#Pictographic/ideographic writing systems}} *[[Pecked curvilinear nucleated]] *[[Petroform]] *[[Petroglyph]] *[[Rebus]] * [[Road sign]] *[[Rock art]] *[[Rock art of the Chumash people]] *[[Sound symbolism]] *[[Stick figure]], in art * [[Symbol]] * [[Traffic sign]] * [[Warning sign]] *[[Yakima Indian Painted Rocks]] {{div col end}} ==Notes== {{Reflist}} ==References== {{refbegin}} * [[Ishmael Reed|Reed, Ishmael]] (2003). ''From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900–2002'', Ishmael Reed, ed. {{ISBN|1-56025-458-0}}. {{refend}} ==External links== {{Commons category|Pictograms}} {{Wiktionary}} {{refbegin}} *[http://pic-com.jp/ Pictogram & Communication: About 1,500 practical pictograms based on Design principles of pictorial symbols for communication support(JIS T 0103:2005)] *[http://capl.washjeff.edu/ CAPL:The Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon, photographic illustrations of objects for multiple languages] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20150511095242/http://pictopedia.jp/eng/ Pictogram Encyclopedia, The collection site of more than 500 pictograms, Pictograms are categorized, and easy to find unique pictogram] *[http://www.pictopen.com Pictopen] - Modern Pictographic Writing *[http://thenounproject.com NounProject] - Free Pictograms under open licences *[http://modernpictograms.com Modern Pictograms] - Explore word and pictogram relationships *[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2016+to+Babylonian Wolfram|Alpha] - Number to pictogram translator {{refend}} {{Visualization}} {{Writing systems |expanded=Ideo/Pictograms}} {{list of writing systems}} {{Prehistoric technology}} {{Authority control}} [[Category:Infographics]] [[Category:Prehistoric inscriptions| ]] [[Category:Pictograms| ]] [[Category:Rock art]] [[Category:Petroglyphs|*]] [[Category:Pre-Columbian art]] [[Category:Indigenous art]] [[Category:History of communication]] [[Category:Proto-writing]] [[Category:Statistical charts and diagrams]]
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