Introduction to Pictopen

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The copy on this page is free. The author, Juan M. Garay

There were attempts to express thoughts through pictography in ancient civilizations, but they were not allowed to succeed for different reasons. Pictography is the art of writing by drawing the things themselves. For instance:

Boat:

To go:

This Guide is an intent to create a writing system for international communication based on such signs. This constructed language (conlang) has been developed by us to the extent that it can be used as a practical way of writing in many fields. It is surprising how easily pictography can be learnt and kept in the memory, the reason being the close connection between the pictogram and its meaning, like these examples:

Pushing:	Thing:	Nothing:	Street:
Fail:	Get up:	Big:	Increase:

all of which can be readily learnt by people regardless their language.

Of course, pictography cannot be spoken, therefore does not replace any language, it is intended to be used as an international auxiliary language. Pictography is just a system of writing and sending messages anywhere in the world. This guide has first, the introduction followed by a second part with sentences about different subjects. We have created over 3.000 pictograms. We may call this conlang the Pictopen System to avoid confusion with other uses of the word pictography. The author is aware that something like pictography cannot be constructed easily.

Nowadays (2012 onwards), there are ways to send messages by mobile phones either sending the photo of the pictograms or sending the pictos drafted by hand on the screen of the mobile phone itself. These possibilities open a gigantic scope for communicating pictopen messages with anyone regardless of the language she or he speaks.