Non-alphabetic orthographies represent either the syllable (for example, Cherokee, Tamil, or Japanese Kana) or a one-syllable unit of meaning (as in Chinese, Japanese Kanji) with each symbol. Similar to the alphabetic orthographies, a unit of spoken language is represented by a symbol, but in the non-alphabetic orthographies, unlike the alphabetic ones, that unit of spoken language is larger than just a phoneme. Chinese is often referred to as a pictograph (a language made up of pictures), because people think that the characters are pictures of the words they represent. In fact, very few Chinese characters are actually pictures of the words they represent. Rather, in Chinese, the symbols represent a unit of pronunciation (a syllable) that is also a unit of meaning (a morpheme), thus Chinese is considered a morpho-syllabic writing system. Approximately 80–90% of Chinese characters also contain what is called a phonetic radical. A phonetic radical is just one part of the character that provides a clue as to how to say the word.

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