Peter T. Daniels scripsit:

> It's the term "ideograph" that led people like Leibniz to waste much
> time searching for "the perfect language" (Eco). DuPonceau took care of
> it in 1838!

The newly released Unicode 4.0 book says (p. 293):

The term "Han ideographic characters" is used within the Unicode
Standard as a common term traditionally used in Western texts
[...]. Taken literally, the word "ideograph" applies only to
some of the ancient original character forms, which indeed
arose as ideographic depictions. The vast majority of Han
characters were developed later via composition, borrowing, and
other non-ideographic principles, but the term "Han ideographs"
remains in English usage as a conventional cover term for the
script as a whole.

In addition, the glossary (p. 1371) defines the relevant sense of
"ideograph" thus:

An English term commonly used to refer to Han characters,
equivalent to the borrowings "hanzi", "kanji", and "hanja".

In short, "ideograph" is a term in common use despite its more than
dubious etymology; in fact, very like "etymology" itself, which we still
use despite the fact that we no longer think of it as the study of the
"true meanings" of words (< Gk etymos 'true'), a notion historically
at least as productive of nonsense ("lucus a non lucendo", e.g.) as the
concept of ideographs.

--
John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com jcowan@...
In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth.
and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
--the Earendillinwe