By that logic we also don't use an alphabet because we have started using symbols like the smiley. Which non-phonemic symbol have they used that couldn't be replaced by a phonemically created word?
Hieroglyphs include some alphabetic elements, but it’s not an alphabetic system. There are no significant historical texts written in it purely alphabetically. If you wrote out a complete text spelling out the words usually represented logographically in phonetic form they’d have thought you’d gone mad. Nobody used it that way.
Sure you will find some places where hieroglyphs are referred to as “an alphabet”, such as in childrens books, but we’re talking about the historical development of writing systems. We can’t do that accurately without distinguishing clearly between different types of writing systems, and this is well established terminology.
You’re probably right about emoji. Oxford Dictionaries named an emoji the ‘word of the year’ in 2015.
simonh|3 years ago
Sure you will find some places where hieroglyphs are referred to as “an alphabet”, such as in childrens books, but we’re talking about the historical development of writing systems. We can’t do that accurately without distinguishing clearly between different types of writing systems, and this is well established terminology.
You’re probably right about emoji. Oxford Dictionaries named an emoji the ‘word of the year’ in 2015.