Definition of "ideographs" [ideographs]

• Plural form of ideograph. (noun)

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• "It is particularly difficult for Europeans to realize the sharp distinction in sound between these two names, the more especially because we have in the West no conception whatever of the effect of tone upon a syllable It may be explained, however, that the sonant initial and even-voiced tone in the one case, contrasted with the surd initial and the scaled tone in the other, involves to the Chinese mind a distinction quite as clear in all dialects as the European distinction in all languages between the two states of Prussia and Russia, or between the two peoples Swedes and Swiss: it is entirely the imperfection of our Western alphabet, not at all that of the spoken sounds or the ideographs, that is at fault."
• "In these we behold groups of what are called in Egyptology "ideographs;" that is to say, pictures of objects arranged for the purpose of conveying sequences of ideas, but without any of those connecting links which language supplies."
• "They developed complex symbols (hieroglyphs) for place names that used combinations of up to three different kinds of elements: pictographs, ideographs and phonetic symbols."