用托马斯·勃朗尼男爵的雄辩的话语来说：一个社会的语言对其成员来说就是一种关于整个世界的象形符号般的隐喻暗示的经验。
Or in Sir Thomas Browne's magnificent phrase, the speech of a community is for its members 'a hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world'.
汉字是以文字为单位进行表达的，每个字都是一个简洁的象形符号。比起由很多字母组成的冗长的英文单词，汉字能节省不少空间。
Written Chinese is a character-based language, so each word is a concise pictogram, rather than a lengthy English word of several letters which takes up more space.
表意文字(象形文字)：图画文字的一种。绘画象形符号，表达物品；并表达由它所引起的联想意念或概念。中文字是一种表意文字。
Ideogram: a form of picture writing in which a symbol may represent the object drawn or the ideas or meanings associated with it. Chinese characters are a form of ideogram.
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