Symbols

A symbol is anything that represents something by convention or association. Usually it a written or printed sign that is used to represent something. Symbols are important part of human communication specially among the literate communities. A symbol that has been learnt to represent a certain specific object or activity by a community makes people within the community to communicate without even having to be present with each other. One can simply leave of note in symbols and others would understand what he/she is trying to tell.

For instance, this cave painting was printed many many years ago by our ancestors and although they are no longer present among us, leaving this symbol has helped us understand what they used to do (such as hunting what kind of animals and using what kind of weapons to hunt). Thus, the use of symbols can help us communicate even long after we die.

Symbols can be created using the resemblance and these kind of symbols are more obvious and easier to understand even for those people who have not learnt the symbol. For example, the following image shows two symbols where the left symbol represents female while the right symbol represents male. These are quiet obvious and easy to understand as the female symbol shows a clear resemblance of a general female clothing and male symbol shows a clear resemblance of a general male clothing.

But some symbols are arbitrary and do not show any resemblance. These symbols are created and generalised and people to learn it and keep the symbol and whatever it represents in memory. For example, in English language, the word "tree" represents a real life tree although this combination of letters does not resemble the tree in any form and does not relate to the actual tree whatsoever.

Icons are the specific type of symbols. Icons are created more due to the resemblance and likeness and are very different from words, letters and scripts. The above image is a fine example of icons. These icons (symbols of female and male) are created and used due to their resemblance in appearance with the actual objects (female and male human genders) they represent.