How Scripts Are Built on Visual Metaphor

The emergence of writing has often been scrutinized through the lens of linguistic notation, while the visual and metaphorical strategies employed in invented scripts are typically sidelined. Being predominantly iconic, ancient, invented scripts offer substantial potential for visual metaphor, a strategy that can operate independently of linguistic coding. Metaphors can operate in multimodal ways, as shown by conceptual metaphor theory, and they play a crucial role in shaping human thought, beyond a language-dominated realm. Here we argue that visual metaphor is also deployed extensively in the invention of writing. We offer a novel comparative outline of the dynamics in script metaphor in the earliest invented scripts: Mesopotamian proto-cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the Chinese oracle bone inscriptions. These scripts rely on specific types of visual metaphor, especially based on metonymy, to convey information. Skirting the traditional view of writing as a primarily language-based phenomenon, we instead focus on the broader visual cognitive mechanisms that influence script evolution. The integration of visual metaphor in script formation is a dynamic process, shaped by selective, yet sometimes cross-culturally convergent, visual strategies that draw on cognitive salient features and categorization strategies.