But not only the signs changed, on the evolutionary path their meanings changed or expanded as well. For instance “head” also became used for ‘front’, and “hand” took meanings of “work” and “power”.
head
head/front
hand
work
power
Although some of these changes are quite predictable and easy to understand, other kinds of changes happened that are far more interesting and less predictable. As an example, the sign for “arrow” at one point was - and was pronounced [S̬I]. It looks like a bow and arrow, but it just so happened that they also pronounced “life” in a similar [S̬I] way, but had no sign for life, so the sign for arrow also became associated with “life”. was now the written form for both “arrow” and “life”, and this is how many signs became associated with all sorts of things, many of which had no physical representation (they became signs for abstract notions).