Is a Chinese character a logogram or phonogram?

Is a Chinese character a logogram or phonogram?

By: Wang Yujiang

Chinese characters are currently used in written Chinese and Japanese. Many linguists regard Chinese characters as logograms.

In linguistics, a logogram is a character that represents a concept or thing, namely a word or phrase, and a phonogram is a character or combination of them that represent a vocal sound, namely a phoneme or a syllable, without reference to meaning. Therefore, the Chinese characters in Japanese known as kanji are logograms. It is a truism.

However, the characters in modern Chinese are not logograms because they represent vocal sound rather than concepts. Although some Chinese characters represent a concept like the English “I” and “a”, all Chinese characters represent a sound.

Modern Chinese is vernacular. If Chinese characters do not represent sounds, then modern Chinese is not vernacular.

If Chinese characters do not represent sounds, we cannot explain so many Chinese homophone characters that are interchangeable.

Finally, many characters of logogram have several sounds, and all characters of a phonogram are practically single syllable sounds. Most Chinese characters in Japanese are two or more syllable sounds, while the characters in modern Chinese are only a single syllable sound. Therefore, the characters in Japanese are logograms, while the characters in modern Chinese are phonograms.