{{Short description|Representation of foreign words in logogram writing systems}} {{more footnotes|date=September 2015}}'''Heterogram''' (classical compound: "different" + "written") is a term used mostly in the philology of Akkadian and Pahlavi texts containing borrowings from Sumerian and Aramaic respectively. <ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Encyclopaedia Iranica |title=IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING |url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ideographic-writing |access-date=2024-06-08 |website=iranicaonline.org |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> It refers to a special type of logogram or ideogram borrowed from another language (in which it may have been either ideographic or phonetic) to represent either a sound or meaning in the matrix language. It is now commonly accepted that they do not represent true borrowings from the embedded language and instead came to represent a separate register of orthographic archaisms.<ref name=":1" />
As an example in English, the written abbreviations ''e.g.'', ''i.e.'', and ''viz.'' are sometimes read respectively as "for example", "that is", and "namely". When read this way, the abbreviations for the Latin phrases ''exempli gratia'', ''id est'', and ''videlicet'' are being used logographically to indicate English phrases which are rough translations. Similarly, the ampersand ⟨&⟩, originally a ligature for the Latin word ''et'', in many European languages stands logographically for the local word for "and" regardless of pronunciation. This can be contrasted with the older way of abbreviating ''et cetera'', namely ''&c.'', where ⟨&⟩ is used to represent ''et'' as a full loanword, not a heterogram.
Heterograms are frequent in cuneiform scripts, such as the Akkadian cuneiform, which uses Sumerian heterograms, or the Anatolian cuneiform, which uses both Sumerian and Akkadian heterograms.<ref>Kudrinski M. and I. Yakubovich. 2016. Sumerograms and Akkadograms in Hittite: Ideograms, Logograms, Allograms, or Heterograms? ''Altorientalische Forschungen'' 43(1-2): 53-66.</ref> In Middle Iranian scripts derived from the Aramaic scripts (such as the Pahlavi scripts), all logograms are heterograms coming from Aramaic.<ref name=":0">Encyclopedia Iranica, [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/huzwares Huswāreš].</ref> Sometimes such heterograms are referred to by terms identifying the source language such as "Sumerograms" or "Aramaeograms". Another example is kanji in Japanese, literally "Sinograms" or "Han characters".
==See also== *Logogram *Kun'yomi *Rebus Principle *Frahang-i Pahlavig *Pangram
== References == {{Reflist}}
Category:Communication design Category:Graphic design Category:Pictograms Category:Writing systems Category:Multilingualism