An ideogram becomes a phonogram when it also stands for the sounds of the word. For example, in English, the sign of the sun can stand for the word sun or son. Logographic writing is also called word writing. An example of a logographic system is Chinese writing. A character represents a word or a morpheme in spoken Chinese.
Japanese writing is part word writing and part syllable writing.
In consonantal alphabets, only the consonants are symbolically represented. A person who knows the spoken language can figure out the vowels. Alphabetic writing systems have a symbol for both consonants and vowels. As a first step in determining the type of a writing system, one needs to consider the number of individual characters or signs in the script. The Alphabet of Nikolsburg is the first known compilation of the Hungarian Runes.