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Comment by IndySun | Hacker News Reader

The article is decent, but the headline is saying something demonstrably false - evidenced by the article itself.

Not one of the symbols can possibly be understood as to its intended meaning without learning what the symbol represents - that is to say, simply by looking at any of them in no way whatsoever suggests, hints, or shows their meaning in the appropriate context.

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I understood the article to mean, for example, that the help mark allows people on a train to signal "though I may not outwardly appear like I am disabled, I do have a need for priority seating". And thus people would (hopefully) offer up their seat without needing to be asked with words.

I don't think they meant that the symbols should be universally understood without need for explanation. That would be accomplished separately through some sort of public education campaign. In the case of the "help mark", they actually explain what it means in multiple languages in a big sign right above the priority seating [1].

[1] https://www.kotsu.metro.tokyo.jp/eng/guides/conduct/

japan glazing imho and i love kamon (family crests). you could have written this article about almost any country.

The kamon are very attractive compared to their Western counterparts, to my eye. Other than that it’s just a weird “wow Japan” article.

The fact you’ve got to learn them doesn’t negate the statement that they communicate without words.

All language has to be learned

True, though I think the point they're aiming at is that symbols like [new driver mark] contrast with literal pictograms like [symbol of person in wheelchair]. You can infer/guess the meaning of [symbol of person in wheelchair] 'without words' in a way that you can't with [new driver mark], because [symbol of person in wheelchair] is communicating with a picture instead, while [new driver mark] appears to be purely convention. (At least, the article doesn't seem to suggest otherwise.)

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