Brinton.] OU± [ 0c t. 1, 



Egyptian and Sinitic alphabets passed somewhat before the 

 dawn of history. 



To this method, which stands midway between the ikonographic 

 and the alphabetic methods of writing, I have given the name ikono- 

 matic, derived from the Greek etxtov-ovn^ an image, a figure ; ovofia- 

 v.roc, a name. That which the figure or picture refers to is not 

 the object represented, but the name, of that object — a sound, 

 not a thing. But it does not refer to that sound as the name of 

 the object, but precisely the contrary — it is the sound of the 

 name of some other object or idea. Many ideas have no objec- 

 tive representation, and others are much more simply expressed 

 bv the use of figures whose names are familiar and of similar sound. 

 Thus, to give a simple example, the infinitive " to hide " could 

 be written by a figure 2, and the picture of a skin or hide. It is 

 this plan on which those familiar puzzles are constructed which 

 are called rebuses, and none other than this which served to 

 bridge over the wide gap between Thought and Sound writing. 

 It is, however, not correct to say that it is a writing by things 

 " ?~ebus ;" but it is by the names of things, and hence I have 

 coined the word ikonomatic, to express this clearly. 



I shall select several illustrations from two widely diverse 

 sources, the one the hieroglyphs of Egypt, the other the heraldry 

 of the Middle Ages, and Irom these more familiar fields obtain 

 some hints of service in unraveling the intricacies of the Mexi- 

 can and Ma} 7 a scrolls. 



The general principle which underlies " ikonomatic writing " is 

 the presence in a language of words of different meaning but 

 with the same or similar sounds ; that is, oNiomophonous words. 

 The figure which represents one of these is used phonetically to 

 signify the other. There are homophones in all languages; but 

 they abound in some more than in others. For obvious reasons, 

 they are more abundant in languages which tend toward mono- 

 syllabism, such as the Chinese and the Maya, and in a lesser de- 

 gree the ancient Coptic. In these it is no uncommon occurrence 

 to find four or five quite different meanings to the same word ; 

 that is, the same sound has served as the radical for that many 

 different names of diverse objects. The picture of any one of 

 these objects would, to the speaker of the language, recall a 

 sound which would have all these significations, and could be 



