> Chinese writing to this day doesn't indicate the sound of the word at all. A fortiori, it doesn't indicate vowels. That's not true. The vast majority of Chin

> Chinese writing to this day doesn't indicate the sound of the word at all. A fortiori, it doesn't indicate vowels. That's not true. The vast majority of Chinese characters (estimated at around 90% or more) are phono-semantic compounds, which were also devised based on the Rebus principle that the OP of the thread mentioned. These compounds consist of an element that hints at a word’s pronunciation (the "phonetic"), together with an element that hints at its meaning (the "radical"). The phonetic and radical are respectively analogous to the rebus and determinative of Egyptian hieroglyphics that the OP also mentioned. For example, the following characters all share the same phonetic 青, which is pronounced qīng in Mandarin Chinese: 請 - pronounced qǐng - with the 言 speech radical, means "to invite, please" 情 - pronounced qíng - with the 忄 heart radical, means "feeling, emotion" 清 - pronounced qīng - with the 氵 water radical, means "clear" 睛 - pronounced jīng - with the 目 eye radical, means "eye" The character 青, which means "blue/green", lends its pronunciation qīng to the characters in these examples, not its meaning. One major caveat is that because the Chinese writing system has been around for a very long time and both the meanings and pronunciations of characters can shift over time, the phonetic and semantic components of many characters are no longer as reliable in indicating their pronunciation or meaning. In many cases they are still good enough though. It’s interesting to note that because sound changes are often systematic, the phonetic components of phono-semantic compounds still generally work within any particular spoken variety of Chinese (i.e., the pronunciation of the phonetic evolves similarly to the pronunciation of the other characters that make use of the phonetic), even though the various Chinese varieties may have diverged differently. [ This response was adapted from my original answer in Quora: https://qr.ae/TUhrP0 https://qr.ae/TUhrP0 ]