Writing

Ancient Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian & Cuneiform work this way...

Two different ways of writing the word bʼalam 'jaguar' in the Maya script – first, as a logogram representing the entire word with the single glyph bʼalam, and then, phonetically using the three syllable signs bʼa, la, and ma

Three ways to write bʼalam using combinations of the logogram with the syllabic signs as phonetic complements. From left to right: bʼa-bʼalam, bʼalam-ma, and bʼa-bʼalam-ma

"Lord, the Gentiles will mock at these things, because of our weakness in writing... wherefore, when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words; and I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words."

-- Ether 12:23-25

Cartouche

Ancient Egyptian writing was not a simple logographic system, where each symbol represents a single word. It was a complex and flexible script that combined logograms (word-signs), phonograms (sound-signs), and determinatives (meaning-signs) to convey meaning.

Ankh (𓋹), Djed-pillar (𓊽), and Was-scepter (𓋾) => carried together by gods and pharaohs, this combination represents the concepts of life, stability, and power
The Red Crown of Lower Egypt (𓋔) combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt (𓋑) => Pschent (𓋖) symbolizes the unification of the two lands of Egypt and the pharaoh's authority over both
A sedge plant (𓇿) for Upper Egypt, a bee (𓆤) for Lower Egypt, and a basket (𓎡) meaning "lord" => A title for the king, combining "he of the sedge" and "he of the bee" (𓀵)

Logographic scripts rely on the rebus principle:

- the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee (𓆤) next to a plus sign (+) and the letter "n" = 𓆤 + n
- the picture 𓁹 could mean "eye", but also for the phonetic equivalent, the first person pronoun "I".
- H + 𓂈 = "Hear", or Here
- walk in the park = p walk ark

pictograms and emojis used as phonograms was a precursor to the development of the alphabet => this process represents one of the most important developments of writing. Fully developed hieroglyphs read in rebus fashion were in use at Abydos in Egypt as early as 3,400 BC[5] and was first employed on Proto-Cuneiform tablets, beginning in the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3,100–2,900 BC)

A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts. In cuneiform texts of Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite languages, many nouns are preceded or followed by a Sumerian word acting as a determinative, for example: