All this talk of ideographs made me think that people on-list might enjoy this (Acrobat 4) PDF: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rscook/pdf/HanKana.fp3.pdf It illustrates the evolution of the Hiragana and Katakana from Chinese characters, with kaishu (simplified and traditional) and small seal forms. There are some minor errors in it ... which I'll fix, if any one can point them out :-)
