Survey for a project, please read and respond

[dpful]

no

[raiden]

Kanji are from China (and should be termed more properly using the Chinese term, Hanzi, when speaking about their roots)

of course, but what does that matter?

and they are not abstract paintings (as pictograms are) but linguistic signs.

how about both? Do you want to deny the pictografic quality of signs like 火、本、好、安 or 火? I was talking about the way they were originally developed, let´s take a look at
人 - man
木 - tree
休 - rest
a man resting beneath a tree becomes one sign meaning "rest".

or

雨 - rain
田 - rice field
雷 - thunderstorm
電 - electricity
rain over a rice field is associated with thunderstorm, now adding a little cable to the sign for thunderstorm you get the concept of electricity. How is this not pictographic?

Those are just the easiest examples, the language´s visual structure is rooted deeply.

Different readings of kanji aren't fundamentally different from orthographic lexemes in English that change their pronunciations (but not their spelling) based upon the grammatical context, such as 'read' (present/infinitive) and 'read' (past tense), the former homophonous with 'reed' and the latter homophonous with 'red', for example

of course there is a culturally developed understanding about which sign means what, and as Kanji tend to combine several pictografic root parts, ambiguity on how to understand one came along naturally. And yes, there are meanings that developed without any relation to the pictografic origin of their respective sign, but that doesn´t make Kanji in general a set of completely arbitrary signs like the Roman alphabet, for example.

Another fine example - from a sign in a buddhist temple:

sorry for the crappy drawing, had to use a mouse. This is a proverb consisting of 4 Kanji, but the trick is they all share the center radical, the square. I don´t even remember what it means, but couldn´t forget the beauty of the original arrangement (not my representation, of course).

[rolins]

I also say no.

[EOJ]

As I teach and do research on linguistics at a University as my profession (and I focus on East Asian historical linguistics), you must excuse me because I can never resist posting on these topics!

Kanji are from China (and should be termed more properly using the Chinese term, Hanzi, when speaking about their roots)

of course, but what does that matter?

Well, it matters because if you're talking about pictograms and 'abstract paintings', these only existed when the characters
were still exclusively in China, thousands of years ago. By the time there was 'kanji', all that was gone.

and they are not abstract paintings (as pictograms are) but linguistic signs.
how about both? Do you want to deny the pictografic quality of signs like 火、本、好、安 or 火? I was talking about the way they were originally developed, let´s take a look at
人 - man
木 - tree
休 - rest
a man resting beneath a tree becomes one sign meaning "rest".

or

雨 - rain
田 - rice field
雷 - thunderstorm
電 - electricity
rain over a rice field is associated with thunderstorm, now adding a little cable to the sign for thunderstorm you get the concept of electricity. How is this not pictographic?

They are no longer pictograms because they represent meaningful linguistic units (i.e. morphemes), they have a fixed number of pronunciations, and they can occur
in a linguistic syntax. Pictograms can do none of these things, they are abstract, universally interpretable conceptualized drawings (such as you find in cave paintings, Hawaiian petroglyphs, and road signs in America). You seem to not know the difference between pictograms and logograms. Chinese characters are highly
logographic (but not totally, there are many phonetic components). English has logograms too, but very few, as in the numerals 1,2,3,4,5,etc.

Those are just the easiest examples, the language´s visual structure is rooted deeply.

What language, Chinese or Japanese? I agree with you on Chinese (but again, we are talking about written and spoken languages--they are different symbolic representations of language).
The Japanese had no writing system before the 5th century, and only acquired Chinese characters through
contacts with Koreans (who borrowed them first). So Japanese can hardly be considered 'deeply rooted' in a visual structure, though it has developed
a strong symbiotic relationship between the written language and the spoken one, due to long standing contacts and influence from China (and Korea).

of course there is a culturally developed understanding about which sign means what, and as Kanji tend to combine several pictografic root parts, ambiguity on how to understand one came along naturally.

Not really. You're forgetting these are linguistic signs, not conceptual signs. They represent meaningful units in language with specific pronunciations (and phonetic elements to assist in the pronunciation), just like an English word like 'laugh'.

And yes, there are meanings that developed without any relation to the pictografic origin of their respective sign, but that doesn´t make Kanji in general a set of completely arbitrary signs like the Roman alphabet, for example.

The roman alphabet, and nearly every major writing system today (alphabetic, logographic, or syllabic) developed from initial pictograms which became logograms, then became either partly or purely phonetic. But note there are no purely logographic scripts. Actually the majority of Chinese characters today have an arbitrary phonetic component and their logographic (i.e. semantographic, which is another term for this) component is quite obscure, or of little help in determining the actual meaning.

But anyway, sorry to derail yet another topic with linguistic banter! If you want to continue the discussion, PM me, or perhaps the mods could shift this into OT.