Human languages originated from the most primitive elements of language: indexes, icons, and symbols. Later, our ancient ancestors created original scripts such as Ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphic script, Sumerian cuneiform script, Maya script, and Chinese Oracle bone script. Among these original texts, only Chinese characters have survived close to their origin and are still used today. The Maya script is no longer in use, and Egypt’s hieroglyphic script and cuneiform script lost their pictographic features and evolved into phonographic scripts.

From the perspective of etymology, human language scripts can be divided into two categories: Native (Source) script and Borrowed (Other Source) script. “Native Script” refers to a script that has developed independently since its inception. It is original in shape and system and has a relatively long history. Chinese characters are a kind of native script. “Borrowed Scripts” refer to characters created by borrowing or referring to other characters or systems. For example, kana in Japanese is borrowed from Chinese cursive characters. Phonographic scripts (Alphabetic Orthography) originated from Ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphic script and Sumerian cuneiform script, and they are borrowed scripts. Therefore, it is important to understand the two different categories of human languages: Phonographic script (Alphabetic Orthography) and Ideographic script (Non-Alphabetic Orthography).