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The musical instrument is spelled cymbal
Cymbal

Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various cymbal alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture....
.
A symbol is something such as an object
Entity

An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities....
, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may stand for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numeral
Numeral

The term numeral can refer to:* Numeral system, a system of mathematical notation for writing numbers* Number names, the words used in a language or writing system to represent numbers...
s are symbols for number
Number

A number is a mathematical object used in counting and measurement. A notational symbol which represents a number is called a Numeral system, but in common usage the word number is used for both the abstract object and the symbol, as well as for the numeral for the number....
s.

All language consists of symbols. The word "cat" is not a cat, but represents the idea of a cat.

Psychology
Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
 has found that people, and even animals, can respond to symbols as if they were the objects they represent.






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Encyclopedia


The musical instrument is spelled cymbal
Cymbal

Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various cymbal alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture....
.
A symbol is something such as an object
Entity

An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities....
, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may stand for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numeral
Numeral

The term numeral can refer to:* Numeral system, a system of mathematical notation for writing numbers* Number names, the words used in a language or writing system to represent numbers...
s are symbols for number
Number

A number is a mathematical object used in counting and measurement. A notational symbol which represents a number is called a Numeral system, but in common usage the word number is used for both the abstract object and the symbol, as well as for the numeral for the number....
s.

All language consists of symbols. The word "cat" is not a cat, but represents the idea of a cat.

Psychology
Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
 has found that people, and even animals, can respond to symbols as if they were the objects they represent. Pavlov
Pavlov

Pavlov and its feminine form Pavlova are common Russian language and Bulgarian language family names. Their Ukrainian language variant is Pavliv....
's dogs salivated when they heard a sound which they associated with food, even if there was no food. Common psychological symbols include a gun to represent a penis
Penis

The penis is an external sex organ of certain biologically male organisms, in both vertebrates and invertebrates.The penis is a reproductive organ, technically an intromittent organ, and for Eutheria, additionally serves as the external organ of urination....
 or a tunnel to represent a vagina
Vagina

The vagina is a fibromuscular cylinder tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles....
. See: phallic symbol and yonic symbol.

The psychologist, Carl Jung
Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in counterculture movements across the globe....
, who studied archetype
Archetype

An archetype is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all....
s, proposed an alternative definition of symbol, distinguishing it from the term "sign
Sign

A sign is an entity which signifies another entity. A natural sign is an entity which bears a causal relation to the signified entity, as thunder is a sign of storm....
". In Jung's view, a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called "self".

Language and symbols

All languages are made up of symbols. In his work, On Interpretation, Aristotle
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 teaches that:
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience, and written words are the symbols of spoken words.
The word "cat", for example, whether spoken or written, is not a literal cat but a sequence of symbols that by convention associate the word with a concept. Hence, the written or spoken word "cat" represents (or stands for) a particular concept formed in the mind. A drawing of a cat, or a stuffed cat, could also serve as a symbol for the idea of a cat.

The study or interpretation of symbols is known as symbology
Symbology

Also known as processual symbolic analysis, symbology was developed by Victor Turner in the mid-1970s to refer to the use of symbols within cultural contexts, in particular ritual....
, and the study of signs is known as semiotics
Semiotics

'Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes , or signification and communication, sign and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems....
.

Etymology

The word "symbol" came to the English language
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 by way of Middle English
Middle English

Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman conquest of England of 1066 and about 1470, when the #Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William...
, from Old French
Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
, from Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
, from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 s?µß???? (sýmbolon) from the root words s??- (syn-) meaning "together" and ß??? (bole) "a throw", having the approximate meaning of "to throw together", literally a "co-incidence", also "sign, ticket, or contract". The earliest attestation of the term is in the Homeric Hymn
Homeric Hymns

The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek language hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter? dactylic hexameter? as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect....
 to Hermes
Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
 where Hermes on seeing the tortoise
Tortoise

Tortoises or land turtles are land-dwelling reptiles of the family of Testudinidae, order Turtle. Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell....
 exclaims s?µß???? ?d? µ?? "symbolon [symbol/sign/portent/encounter/chance find?] of joy to me!" before turning it into a lyre
Lyre

The lyre is a string instrument well known for its use in classical antiquity and later. The recitations of the Ancient Greece were accompanied by lyre playing....
.

See also


  • Alchemy
    Alchemy

    Alchemy , a part of the Occult Tradition, is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties....
  • Applied Drama
    Applied Drama

    Applied Drama is an umbrella term for the wider use of drama practice in a specific social context and environment. This practice doesn't have to take place in a conventional theatre space....
  • Asemic writing
    Asemic writing

    Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content".Illegible, invented, or primal manuscripts are all influences upon asemic writing....
  • Check (mark)
  • Computer icons
  • Dramatic symbol
    Dramatic symbol

    A dramatic symbol is a Theatrical property, gesture, Motion , or articulation in a theatrical or dramatic context that carries distinct symbolic meaning and adds to the complexity of a theatrical work or play....
  • Emblem
    Emblem

    An emblem is a pictorial , abstract art or representational, that epitomizes a concept ? e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory ? or that represents a person, such as a Monarch or Saint symbology....
  • Font
    Font

    In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface. For example, the set of all characters for 9-point Bulmer italic type is a font, and the 10-point size would be a separate font, as would the 9 point upright....
  • Glyph
    Glyph

    A glyph is an element of writing. Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol, whether interchangeable or context-dependent, are called allographs; the abstract unit they are variants of is called a grapheme or character ....
  • Grapheme
    Grapheme

    In typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in writing systems. Graphemes include letter , Chinese characters, numerals, punctuation marks, and all the individual symbols of any of the world's writing systems....
  • Icon
    Icon

    An 'icon' is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity. More broadly the term is used in a wide number of contexts for an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it either concretely or by analogy, as in semiotics; by extension, ...
     (religious) and secular icon
    Secular icon

    A secular icon is an image or pictograph of a person or thing used for other than religious purpose. ...
  • LGBT symbols
    LGBT symbols

    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities have adopted certain symbols and symbolates for which they are identified and by which they demonstrate unity, gay pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another....
  • Letter frequencies
    Letter frequencies

    The frequency of letters in text has often been studied for use in cryptography, and frequency analysis in particular. No exact letter frequency distribution underlies a given language, since all writers write slightly differently....
  • List of common symbols
    List of common symbols

    There are thousands of symbols that are recognized by most people all over the world, and many more that are limited to certain regions, religions, sciences, etc.....
  • List of symbols
    List of symbols

    This is a list of graphical signs, icons, and symbols. See also: List of common symbols...
  • Logo
    Logo

    A logo is a graphical element that, together with its logotype form a trademark or commercial brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition....
  • Logotype
  • Map-territory relation
  • National symbol
  • Religious symbolism
    Religious symbolism

    Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion. Religions view religious texts, rituals, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals....
  • Punctuation
    Punctuation

    Punctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers, including punctuation marks , Interword separation and indentation....
  • Representation
    Representation (arts)

    Representation describes the signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation people know and understand the world and reality through the act of naming it....
  • Second-order simulacra
    Second-order simulacra

    Second-order simulacra, a term coined by Jean Baudrillard, are symbols without referents, that is, symbols with no real object to represent. Simply put, a symbol is itself taken for reality and further layer of symbolism is added....
  • Semiotics
    Semiotics

    'Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes , or signification and communication, sign and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems....
  • Sign (linguistics)
    Sign (linguistics)

    There are many models of the linguistic sign . A classic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides:...
  • Siglas poveiras
    Siglas poveiras

    The siglas poveiras is a proto-writing system that has been used by the local community of P?voa de Varzim in Portugal for many generations. The siglas were primarily used as a signature for family coat-of-arms in order to mark family belongings....
  • Symbol rate
    Symbol rate

    In digital communications, symbol rate, also known as baud or modulation rate; is the number of symbol changes made to the transmission medium per second using a digitally modulation signal or a line code....
  • Symbol Grounding
    Symbol grounding

    The Symbol Grounding Problem is related to the problem of how words get their meanings, and hence to the problem of what meaning itself really is....
     Problem
  • Table of mathematical symbols
    Table of mathematical symbols

    This is a listing of common symbols found within all branches of the science of mathematics....
  • Typography
    Typography

    Typography is the art and techniques of typesetting, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques....
  • Unicode symbols
    Unicode Symbols

    In computing, in addition to encoding characters for the various writing systems used throughout the World, Unicode also devotes several blocks of characters to symbols that have a well-defined place in plain text....


External links

  • Symbolism Wiki