The Rebus Principle

Most all of us have seen a rebus at some point. Often for children, it uses pictures of things the names of which represent sounds of words in a sentence. It is described as a type of pun - an image that can mean two things.

In a recent episode of Nova, The Rebus Principle is discussed. Apparently early written languages, such as hieroglyphics, used rebuses to designate spoken words.

The show goes on to describe how our more familiar alphabet, from A to Z, descended from these rebuses.

Very interesting.

I started this thread here because, well, puns are involved.

But along with my previous thread, "Concerning concerning", perhaps we need a forum for discussing
"Writing/Language"...