If somebody refers to Chinese or Japanese characters as hieroglyphs are they right or wrong? Aren't there many hieroglyphic writing systems? If somebody says hieroglyphs refers only to Ancient Egyptian writing are they merely pedantic or just plain wrong?
I know there are quite a few other terms used for Chinese and Japanese characters (han character, hanja, hanzi, ideogram, ideograph, kanji, pictogram, pictograph, sinogram, sinograph…). And I know that those characters used to be used in Korea and Vietnam, but I don't want to get sidetracked and focus just on the applicability of this term, not whether there are better or less ambiguous or more precise or more technical terms.
Best Answer
Egyptian hieroglyphs are the most popular, but the word hieroglyph is of Greek origin ("sacred carvings") and can refer to the characters of several other logographic writing systems:
And more.