From the collection: Blissymbolics

The story of a utopian attempt to introduce a universal pictographic writing system, Blissymbolics.

It is a noble but unrealistic idea that seems typically mid-century, and it’s unimaginable that it would fly today. Not that Blissymbolics flew either. It reminds me of Esperanto.

Even in this brief article that contains a few examples of Blissymbolics, many of the explanations seem rather tenuous. My favourite is stick (“linear thing + tree”). Or perhaps branch, which is a division symbol next to the tree symbol (“part (of) + tree”).

I also wonder how skewed by western culture Blissymbolics is, and if it could genuinely be said to be universal.