What do you call the etymology of symbols

[Biskit]

This is one of those wacky Sunday afternoon thoughts. I am not in any way a linguist expert, but I do find etymology interesting, but is there a related term for the study of the roots or evolution of symbols?

The obvious example, as I sit typing, is the smiley and its variants. According to wikipedia, the first known use dates to 1948 and then there's lots of fun information, BUT is there a proper term for this etymology of symbols… or can etymology apply to symbols as well?

 

[Lenny]

Could it be something within semiotics -- the study of signs (with the definition of a sign being "something that can be interpreted as having a meaning which is something other than itself" - e.g. the smiley emoticon).

 

[Biskit]

If my understanding is correct, semiotics is equivalent the linguistics for signs and symbols and might encompass the equivalent of etymology, but I was really wondering if there was a more specific term for the origin/evolution of a sign.

 

[Glisterspeck]

Semiotics is fascinating stuff. There's an area of study therein called visual rhetoric, also very interesting. Both were covered to great extent in my visual communications BA, and I've loved reading in the field ever since.

My favorite is probably Umberto Eco, who is an Italian professor of semiotics as well as a fiction writer. It's fun because you can see him playing with the concepts he writes about academically in his fiction, but he does so without making the fiction boring. He's best known for The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, but my own favorite is Baudolino, which people lare probably getting tired of me mentioning at every opportunity. He's also a medevialist, with many books on the subject, and of course, books on semiotics.

 

[alchemist]

As prosaic as it may sound, and apologies for the source, but in the Da Vinci Code, they talked about symbology which covered the meaning and origins of symbols.

 

[Glisterspeck]

Symbology is generally considered a less specific synonym of semiotics; less specific because symbology means not only the study of, but a specific collection of symbols. Usually, in academic terms, it is referred to as semiotics.

I see your point, though, Biskit. It seems there should be an area of concentration within semiotics that just deals with origins. It would make for a cool book.

 

[Biskit]

Thanks all - sounds like a word needs inventing!

When I went poking around, I found all sorts of odds and ends relating to etymology, including even more specialised terms for place names or people names etc.

It sounds like there has been a long discrimination against poor old symbols in favour of words.

 

[Gumboot]

Yes, semiotics is the correct term. Rather than having a division of study for the origin of signs, semiotics is instead divided into different types and applications of signs; for example visual semiotics and literary semiotics.

 

[MistingWolf]

Go with what Star Ocean used? "Symbology". Sounds fancy and plausible.