You are clearly not literate in Chinese. There is very little "iconic" about Chinese characters, with the exception of a select few ("Pictograms" is a gross mi

You are clearly not literate in Chinese. There is very little "iconic" about Chinese characters, with the exception of a select few ("Pictograms" is a gross mischaracterization). No attempt was made during their (thousand-year long) formulation (and certainly none during the reform), to design them so that their meaning was readily apparent from their form (Rather, most consist of a semantic classifier loosely classifying them based on meaning, and a "phonetic" component loosely hinting at their pronunciation). Thus, their lack of readily perceivable meaning has little bearing on the possibility of intentionally designed icons having readily perceivable meaning. (Though not directly related to my point, I also must point out your assertion "each depicting a single, well-defined language element and having just one unambiguous, official reading" is false. One example (of thousands): 行, pronounced as any one of [xíng, háng, xìng, hàng, héng] and meaning any one of ["go", "travel/walk", "row", "action", "trade/profession", "seniority", "competent", "makeshift"])