Writing systems:

The general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. In the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters (or letter pair/groups) represent speech sounds.

In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable.

In a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols.

Writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. However, Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a full range of thoughts and ideas.

Most Chinese characters are classified as logograms, let’s watch this interesing video: