How writing develops
From pictographs to alphabetic letters:
- Stage 1: Symbol (grapheme, written character) represents idea, and looks like idea: pictographic writing
- Stage 2: Symbol represents whole spoken word: logographic writing
- Stage 3: Symbol represents a syllable (a consonant-vowel unit such as ka, po, nu)
- Stage 4: Symbol represents a phoneme (a single speech sound such as /k/, /o/, /m/: alphabet