Table 1 

Prior “definitions” of logography given in the literature. a: Viktor Aleksandrovich Istrin (1906–1967), Soviet philologist. See e.g., Istrin (1965).

Gelb (1952, p. 65): “The signs used in the earliest Uruk writing are clearly word signs limited to the expression of numerals, objects, and personal names. This is the stage of writing that we call logography or word writing and that should be sharply distinguished from the so-called ‘ideography.”’ Further (p. 99): “Logograms, that is signs for words of the language.” 
Moorehouse (1953, p. 26, fn. 9): “A sign so used may be called a logogram: it is a sign attached to a particular word, though without reference to its meaning (which would make it an ideogram) or its sound (a phonogram).” This is in his discussion of the Hittite use of Akkadian 〈ABU〉 ‘father’ for Hittite attash ‘father’. 
Diringer (1958) does not use the term “logograph,” but rather the now disfavored term “ideograph,” but he hints (p. 43) that this is not really an appropriate usage: “At a second stage, the symbols represented also ideas; signs were borrowed from those denoting words related in meaning, for example the solar disk came to represent also the ideas of ‘day’ and ‘time.’ Characters used in this way are called, though not quite correctly, ideographs; they were, to be more exact, word-signs…” 
Pope (1975) gives something closer to an operational definition of logography when he writes (p. 203): “logogram a sign for a complete word, differing from a determinative in that it furnishes additional information instead of classifying information already given. Chinese characters are logograms, and Chinese can be called a logographic script. But most, perhaps all, other scripts contain a class of logograms. English examples include £, $, =, + as well as all the numeral signs. Abbreviations, though composed of phonograms, are logographic in function.” 
Sampson (1985, p. 33): “logographic systems are those based on meaningful units” 
Coulmas (1989) does not really define the term, but implies that a logogram is a sign used to represent the word or meaning (see e.g., his discussion on page 78). 
DeFrancis (1989) defines the term much as others do, but rejects it as inappropriate, particularly for Chinese, since for him scripts always have strong phonetic components. He characterizes Chinese as morphosyllabic, meaning that each character denotes a syllable as well as some aspect of the meaning of the morpheme. 
Drucker (1995, p. 14): “Writing systems …may also be logographic, in which case the written sign represents a single word.” 
Harris (1995) reviews a number of typologies, but never provides a definition of what the term “logographic” denotes. 
Daniels (1996b, p. 9): “Istrin’sa ‘ideograms’ do not in fact record ‘ideas’ (Gelb rightly banished the term from our science, preferring logogram) but rather individual words or their significant parts.” 
Sproat (2000) largely followed in DeFrancis’s footsteps in rejecting the categorical distinction between logographic and phonographic scripts. 
Coulmas (2003, p. 47): “Being logograms, the signs refer to these words in their entirety, that is, the graphic complexity of the signs is not related to the internal structure of the words.” 
Rogers (2005, p. 14): “When we get to Chinese in chapter 3, we will meet a writing system where the primary relationship of graphemes is to morphemes. Such a system can be called morphographic, and those graphemes can be termed morphograms” (boldface original). 
Robinson (2007, p. 13): “Europeans and Americans of ordinary literacy must recognize and write about 52 alphabetic signs, and sundry other symbols, such as numerals, punctuation marks and whole-word semantic symbols, for example +, &, £, $, 2, which are sometimes called logograms.” 
Dehaene (2009), citing Frith (1985), takes a neurological/psychological view of the term and uses it to denote the phase of learning to read (really a stage prior to learning to read) where children recognize words in terms of their overall shapes. The classic instance of this is children who can “read” the brand name Coca Cola as written in its traditional cursive form. In common with the grammatological definitions of the term is the notion that the written form represents a whole word. 
Daniels (2018, p. 155): The closest thing to a definition is here: “logogram: a symbol (often a pictogram) denoting the meaning but not the pronunciation of a word or morpheme” 
Handel (2019, pp. 7–8): “In a logographic system, the basic graphic elements represent meaningful elements of the spoken language, so that identically pronounced but semantically contrastive elements have distinct graphic representations.” 
Gelb (1952, p. 65): “The signs used in the earliest Uruk writing are clearly word signs limited to the expression of numerals, objects, and personal names. This is the stage of writing that we call logography or word writing and that should be sharply distinguished from the so-called ‘ideography.”’ Further (p. 99): “Logograms, that is signs for words of the language.” 
Moorehouse (1953, p. 26, fn. 9): “A sign so used may be called a logogram: it is a sign attached to a particular word, though without reference to its meaning (which would make it an ideogram) or its sound (a phonogram).” This is in his discussion of the Hittite use of Akkadian 〈ABU〉 ‘father’ for Hittite attash ‘father’. 
Diringer (1958) does not use the term “logograph,” but rather the now disfavored term “ideograph,” but he hints (p. 43) that this is not really an appropriate usage: “At a second stage, the symbols represented also ideas; signs were borrowed from those denoting words related in meaning, for example the solar disk came to represent also the ideas of ‘day’ and ‘time.’ Characters used in this way are called, though not quite correctly, ideographs; they were, to be more exact, word-signs…” 
Pope (1975) gives something closer to an operational definition of logography when he writes (p. 203): “logogram a sign for a complete word, differing from a determinative in that it furnishes additional information instead of classifying information already given. Chinese characters are logograms, and Chinese can be called a logographic script. But most, perhaps all, other scripts contain a class of logograms. English examples include £, $, =, + as well as all the numeral signs. Abbreviations, though composed of phonograms, are logographic in function.” 
Sampson (1985, p. 33): “logographic systems are those based on meaningful units” 
Coulmas (1989) does not really define the term, but implies that a logogram is a sign used to represent the word or meaning (see e.g., his discussion on page 78). 
DeFrancis (1989) defines the term much as others do, but rejects it as inappropriate, particularly for Chinese, since for him scripts always have strong phonetic components. He characterizes Chinese as morphosyllabic, meaning that each character denotes a syllable as well as some aspect of the meaning of the morpheme. 
Drucker (1995, p. 14): “Writing systems …may also be logographic, in which case the written sign represents a single word.” 
Harris (1995) reviews a number of typologies, but never provides a definition of what the term “logographic” denotes. 
Daniels (1996b, p. 9): “Istrin’sa ‘ideograms’ do not in fact record ‘ideas’ (Gelb rightly banished the term from our science, preferring logogram) but rather individual words or their significant parts.” 
Sproat (2000) largely followed in DeFrancis’s footsteps in rejecting the categorical distinction between logographic and phonographic scripts. 
Coulmas (2003, p. 47): “Being logograms, the signs refer to these words in their entirety, that is, the graphic complexity of the signs is not related to the internal structure of the words.” 
Rogers (2005, p. 14): “When we get to Chinese in chapter 3, we will meet a writing system where the primary relationship of graphemes is to morphemes. Such a system can be called morphographic, and those graphemes can be termed morphograms” (boldface original). 
Robinson (2007, p. 13): “Europeans and Americans of ordinary literacy must recognize and write about 52 alphabetic signs, and sundry other symbols, such as numerals, punctuation marks and whole-word semantic symbols, for example +, &, £, $, 2, which are sometimes called logograms.” 
Dehaene (2009), citing Frith (1985), takes a neurological/psychological view of the term and uses it to denote the phase of learning to read (really a stage prior to learning to read) where children recognize words in terms of their overall shapes. The classic instance of this is children who can “read” the brand name Coca Cola as written in its traditional cursive form. In common with the grammatological definitions of the term is the notion that the written form represents a whole word. 
Daniels (2018, p. 155): The closest thing to a definition is here: “logogram: a symbol (often a pictogram) denoting the meaning but not the pronunciation of a word or morpheme” 
Handel (2019, pp. 7–8): “In a logographic system, the basic graphic elements represent meaningful elements of the spoken language, so that identically pronounced but semantically contrastive elements have distinct graphic representations.” 
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