ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-CORE-243-028 · ATLAS 260

Pasigraphy

The design of a universally readable script intended to record meanings as independently as possible from individual spoken languages.

Part of the subject path Writing, Typography and Media

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

E · Selected case R3 · Justified illustrative case

Pasigraphy offers a focused test case for the ambition to communicate across languages through a shared written notation. Its intended cross-linguistic reach must be distinguished from the inferential function of a concept notation.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Pasigraphy denotes the design of a script intended to be readable across languages by recording meanings as independently as possible from particular spoken forms. Such projects assign signs to concepts, logical relations, or classes of knowledge and promise communication without shared pronunciation. The promise is productive but limited: the selection, organisation, and use of signs still depend on conventions, cultural categories, and learned grammar. Pasigraphy therefore does not eliminate translation but relocates it into the construction of the sign system. The conceptual movement proceeds from linguistic diversity towards common notation, tests its actual learnability and expressive range, and returns with the insight that universality is always designed, negotiated, and sustained by concrete communities of users.

Movement of thought

1. Different spoken languages initially name one domain through independent forms and grammatical organisations. 2. A design assigns standard visible signs to shared concepts or relations and bypasses pronunciation. 3. Users learn combination rules and test which propositions can genuinely be reconstructed across languages. 4. A counter-test seeks culturally disputed categories, ambiguities, and expressive domains the system cannot represent neutrally. 5. Pasigraphy returns as a mediating planned language of writing whose reach depends on convention and maintenance.

Scientific use case

Writing history, semiotics, and interlinguistics compare pasigraphic designs by expressive power, learning effort, and cultural presupposition. User studies test whether readers actually reconstruct the same relations.

Example

A fictional research network develops signs for cause, uncertainty, and measurement so teams can record results; culturally contested values still require supplementary definitions.

Counterexample

An internationally familiar sign or collection of pictograms is not yet a pasigraphy. A systematic, combinable design for cross-linguistically readable notation of meanings is required.

Distinction

Distinguish pasigraphy from conceptual writing as general concept-based notation, ideography as the historical idea of direct idea-signs, and translation as transfer between linguistic structures. Pasigraphy is a project of universality.

Effect on thought and perception

Pasigraphies can facilitate specialist cooperation and sharpen attention to conceptual structure. They may also treat local differences as defects in a supposedly universal system.

Resonance

Signs seek a path between languages without travelling through the same sound. Their connection arises in a jointly learned semantic space and remains negotiable there.

Etymology

Technical core term; individual etymological review pending

Provenance

ATLAS 241 residual-case triage → profile candidate 241-B → source and neighbourhood cross-check → ATLAS 243

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Pasigraphy“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-CORE-243-028. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-243-028

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-CORE-243-028

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Jacob’s 1858 account discusses a universally readable writing project, including Maimieux’s system and comparisons with specialised notation. This records an aspiration, not its achievement. Independence from spoken language does not remove the need to learn a code. [JACOB-1858]

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Identify the knowledge still needed when words are replaced by allegedly universal signs.

Refined short definition

Pasigraphy aims at written communication readable across different spoken languages.

Further explanation

A shared sign can bridge a language boundary without abolishing convention. Test its use with an unfamiliar reader and a different task. Shared orientation is a real gain, but does not make a familiar symbol humanity’s natural language.

Additional example

Original scenario: An arrow points towards an exit. Direction alone does not state permission or the destination beyond it.

References for the historical section

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.