Is Chinese writing pictorial, ideographic - or neither? Chinese writing - that of Mandarin - does not seem anything like picture language as that is represented by Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nor does it seem ideographic in the sense that each character represents an idea. Is there is an accurate, brief characterisation of the language ? Perhaps there is not. I ask my question from a position of, as you will have realised, very considerable ignorance. But I would appreciate any guidance.
Is there is an accurate, brief characterisation of the language?


Considering it had developed over such a long period of time, it would be a trade-off between these two. The shortest, yet acceptable answer I can give is:

Written Chinese characters started with both pictorial and ideographic ones, but has grown more complex over history: Sometimes two characters that had the same sound would get confused and become the same character. Sometimes new characters are made combining the sound from one and meaning of another. Loanwords from sounds also exist throughout history. But the sounds also changed throughout history.