{{short description|Writing system wherein each symbol represents a concept}} thumb|Basic Blissymbols. [[File:John Wilkins Lord's Prayer.jpg|thumb|The Lord's Prayer in John Wilkins's ''Real Character''.]] A '''pasigraphy''' (from Greek πᾶσι ''pasi'' "to all" and γράφω ''grapho'' "to write") is a writing system where each written symbol represents a concept (rather than or not just a word or sound or series of sounds in a spoken language).
The aim is to be intelligible to persons of all languages. The term was first applied to a system proposed in 1796, though a number of pasigraphies had been devised prior to that; Leopold Einstein reviews 60 attempts at creating an international auxiliary language, the majority of the 17th–18th century projects being pasigraphies of one kind or another,<ref name="einstein1884">Leopold Einstein, "Al la historio de la Provoj de Lingvoj Tutmondaj de Leibniz ĝis la Nuna Tempo", 1884. Reprinted in ''Fundamenta Krestomatio'', UEA 1992 [1903].</ref> and several pasigraphies and auxiliary languages, including some sample texts, are also reviewed in Arika Okrent's book on constructed languages.<ref name="okrent2009">Arika Okrent, ''In The Land of Invented Languages'', Spiegel & Grau 2009 ({{ISBN|0385527888}}).</ref> Leibniz wrote about the alphabet of human thought and Alexander von Humboldt corresponded with Peter Stephen Du Ponceau who proposed a universal phonetic alphabet.
Examples of pasigraphies include Blissymbols, Real Character, IConji and Yerkish.
== See also == * Cave Beck * Constructed language * Emoji * Engineered language * Ideogram * Jacob Linzbach * Joseph de Maimieux * Philosophical language
== References ==
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Category:Interlinguistics Category:Writing systems
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