Pasigraphy

A pasigraphy (from Greek pasi 'to all' and graph 'write') is a writing system where each written symbol represents a concept (rather than a word or sound or series of sounds in a spoken language). The aim (as with ordinary numerals 1, 2, 3, etc.) 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,^[1] while Arika Okrent includes a list of 500 in her book on the subject, with samples of many.^[2] Leibniz wrote about the Alphabet of human thought and Alexander von Humboldt corresponded with Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (1760-1844) who proposed a universal phonetic alphabet.

Examples of pasigraphies include Blissymbols and Real Character.

See also

• Constructed language
• Engineered language
• Jacob Linzbach
• Philosophical language
• Han unification

References

1. ↑ Leopold Einstein, "Al la historio de la Provoj de Lingvoj Tutmondaj de Leibnitz ĝis la Nuna Tempo", 1884. Reprinted in Fundamenta Krestomatio, UEA 1992 [1903].
2. ↑ Arika Okrent, In The Land of Invented Languages, Spiegel & Grau 2009 (ISBN 0385527888).