When you see an isolated letter "u" in English, you say /ju/. When you see the word "you", you also say /ju/. This fact is what allows "u" to be shorthand or ab

When you see an isolated letter "u" in English, you say /ju/. When you see the word "you", you also say /ju/. This fact is what allows "u" to be shorthand or abbreviation for "you". Perhaps for you there is no distinction between a shorthand and a logogram. But, in that case, I don't see how you also couldn't argue that "you" is a logogram for the abstract idea of the second person. In reality, we separate between logograms and alphabets by the use of symbols representing ideas or sounds. In the English example, "u" is being used as a non-traditional phonetic digram /ju/. Your example from the Rosetta Stone was a phonetic use of the symbol. There are also non-phonetic uses, where the symbol represents the sun, regardless of its phonetics. This is why it's a mixed system. The Egyptians marked semivowels /j~i/ and /w~u/. Egyptologists use them as vowels, because they have to use something and that's as good a thing as any. We have no idea how any ancient Egyptian word was realized. Everyone I know produces all the variations of "to" the same. Maybe there is a dialectic difference. EDIT: I just had a thought. Let's use an English example where the shorthand is not isolated. Let's look at "r8" for "rate". This is obviously not a logographic use of "8", as the "r" is still necessary for the meaning. Instead, "8" is again being used as a non-traditional phonetic gram, the trigram /eɪt/. The use of "u" and "2" is exactly the same; their use is as phonetic grams and not logograms.