Response to Susmita

The first of Susmita's questions today is about whether pictures are a form of writing. Well, I have to break this down two ways, because I think that they can be, but they usually aren't. For example, hieroglyphs were used to create Egyptian writing, so obviously pictures can take on that role. The only problem with that example is that hieroglyphs are established as a particular form of writing--i.e. certain pictures mean specific things, allowing someone to read their meaning without (too much) ambiguity. But, at the same time, simple things like facial expressions or pictures of recognizable images (such as places) can evoke specific feelings or ideas. On the other hand, a picture is rather ambiguous, and meaning isn't specific--there's no specified signified (that sounds weird, I know). So, long story short, I would have to say that pictures CAN be a method of writing, but need some kind of system to establish them as such.