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A pictography is a system of writing that uses symbols or pictures to represent words or ideas. Pictographies are also sometimes called ideographic writing systems.

Pictographies have been used by many different cultures throughout history, and they are often used to convey basic ideas or concepts rather than to represent the sounds of a particular language. Some examples of ancient pictographies include Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Sumerian cuneiform script, and the Chinese script.

Pictographies are generally simpler and more concise than phonetic writing systems, which represent the sounds of a language using symbols. However, they are also less precise, as the same symbol or picture can often be interpreted in different ways depending on the context.

Today, pictographies are not as widely used as phonetic writing systems, but they continue to be an important part of some cultures and languages. For example, the Chinese script is still used to write Chinese and other languages in East Asia, and it includes a combination of pictographic and phonetic characters.