Pictograms (ARASAAC)

ARASAAC — the Aragonese Portal of Augmentative and Alternative Communication, a brand of the Government of Aragón, in Spain — publishes some fourteen thousand pictograms: small drawings of a house, of to eat, of nervous, each with the words that name it in some forty languages. Parseh can keep them on this computer, so that an exercise can carry a picture of what it is about.

They are for the studio’s pages and exercises: a picture to put beside a word, on a card, in a question or on a line of a lesson. This page is where they are fetched, kept and taken away, and where you can look through them; nothing else in Parseh needs them, and nothing breaks without them.

It is optional in every sense. Until you press a button on its page nothing is fetched, Parseh’s own installation is exactly the size it was, and no page of Parseh puts a pictogram anywhere you did not put it. Nothing you write goes with the request: the page asks two of ARASAAC’s own hosts for ARASAAC’s own files, and tells them nothing of yours.

1. Getting there#

On a phone the page opens with the phone’s own bar, like its sibling Settings pages, and does everything the computer’s does.

2. Whose pictures these are#

The pictograms are ARASAAC’s. They were drawn by Sergio Palao for ARASAAC and are the property of the Government of Aragón, which shares them under the Creative Commons licence BY-NC-SA 4.0 — attribution, non-commercial, share-alike. Parseh does not own them and cannot give them another licence; it fetches them for you, and says what the licence asks of you before you press the button. What it asks is ARASAAC’s own, in the words of its terms of use:

Name them.

The author (Sergio Palao), the owner (the Government of Aragón), their origin (ARASAAC) and the licence (BY-NC-SA) must be cited, in one of the two forms the terms give: The pictographic symbols used are the property of the Government of Aragón and have been created by Sergio Palao for ARASAAC (http://www.arasaac.org), that distributes them under Creative Commons License BY-NC-SA. or Pictograms author: Sergio Palao. Origin: ARASAAC (http://www.arasaac.org). License: CC (BY-NC-SA). Owner: Government of Aragon (Spain).

Not for sale.

The use of these resources within any product or publication for commercial purposes is excluded. The licence’s own definition of non-commercial is not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation: a document you study from, print for your own class or give to a friend is on the right side of it; a book you sell is not. Where money is involved in some other way, read the licence, or write to ARASAAC: Parseh cannot tell you where the line is for you.

Shared on the same terms.

Any work derived from the resources … must be distributed with the same Creative Commons License BY-NC-SA. So a document that holds pictograms goes to others — a friend, a class, a website — under BY-NC-SA, credit and all. What is yours in it stays yours; it can only be passed on on those terms.

The logo.

ARASAAC asks for its logo on signs, posters and plates that use the pictograms to mark public areas, services and shops. A page for studying a language is none of those.

Parseh enforces none of this and could not: the licence does. What it does is say it here, before anything is fetched; write the credit, word for word, into arasaac/LICENSE-ARASAAC.txt when a download ends; and list the pictograms on the Licences page.

3. What is fetched, and from where#

Two hosts, and nothing else — no account, no key, and nothing of yours sent:

api.arasaac.org

gives the word lists: for each language you tick, one list of every pictogram with the words that name it in that language. A list comes as 5 to 8 MB of JSON, of which Parseh keeps only a part: the words, and a few facts about each pictogram.

static.arasaac.org

gives the pictures: one PNG for each of the 13,829 pictograms, at 300 or at 500 pixels.

What it costs was measured on the real hosts on 2 October 2026, and the page says it before you press a button:

The pictures come one at a time, on one connection kept open, with a short pause between two, and each request carries only Parseh’s name and version. A host that says it is busy is waited out for as long as it asks (two minutes at most), and a wait that grows after any other error. ARASAAC’s terms say nothing about how many files may be fetched at once, so Parseh asks for as few things as it can: once, politely, and again only for what has changed.

4. The page, from the top#

Whose pictures these are.

What is above, in a box that is always there: the credit in ARASAAC’s words, what it asks of you, and links to the terms and the licence.

Languages.

One line for each language Parseh teaches, in its own script: how many words ARASAAC has in it, how many of the 13,829 pictograms those words name, and what its list costs. English is ticked to begin with: a picture is found by a word, and English names every one of the 13,829 pictograms. Tick the languages your documents are written in as well, if you like. Japanese is not offered, and the line says why: ARASAAC has no words in it. Hindi is not either: its list holds one word, and that one is Spanish. Turkish is offered, and its line says honestly that its words name 2,656 of the 13,829.

Size of the pictures.

300 pixels, the one to start with, or 500 pixels, sharper on a large page, at twice the cost. All the pictures are of one size: changing it fetches them all again.

What it costs.

A line under the choices, which follows every tick and every size: how much will come, how long it takes, how much it keeps, and — where the disk has not the room — that it will not start.

One button, saying what it does.

Get it the first time; Carry on after a stop or an error; Add the language ticked when something is installed and you tick another; Fetch again at 500 pixels… when you change the size, which asks first, since it replaces every picture.

Update

, beside it once everything is here. It asks ARASAAC which pictograms are new, changed or withdrawn since, and fetches only those: a picture that is here is asked for again with If-Modified-Since, and the server says unchanged for the many whose record changed without the picture changing. A pictogram ARASAAC no longer lists is let go.

Remove…

, which asks first. On a language’s line it takes away that language’s words and leaves the pictures; below, it takes away everything.

While it runs the page shows a bar — the word list in megabytes, then the pictures by number — with the time left, and Stop; the choices are shut. The same job is on the Working list on every page of Parseh. Stopping is not failing: what came is kept, the page says so, and the button says Carry on. A download that was cut by a dropped line, a closed laptop or a Parseh that was stopped carries on the same way, and no picture is fetched twice.

5. Looking for a pictogram, and using one#

Once the pictograms are here you can find one by a word and see it before you use it. A frame opens over the page you are on, like every dialog of Parseh, and it is the same frame wherever it opens:

In the frame:

Type a word.

It finds the pictograms whose words match, in every language you fetched or in the one you choose, whichever way you type it: casa, Casa, cása, and a Persian word with either kind of y or k. Every word you type must be found, in any order. The best match comes first: the word itself, then its plural, then words that begin with it, then words that contain it. With nothing typed it lists every pictogram, alphabetically.

Look at one.

Click a thumbnail (or move to it with the arrow keys): the picture shows large at the side, with its word, what it means, the words it has in every language here, what ARASAAC says of it, and its number. On a phone the picture opens as a sheet over the list, with Back to the list.

Add it.

Where the frame can add, the button says what it does — Add to the page, Use this pictogram, Put it in the text — and where several may go in one after another a second one, … keep looking, adds it and stays open. The words under the pictures are in the language of the page you are on, when its words are here.

Violence and sex.

ARASAAC marks some pictograms as about violence or about sex. They are left out unless you tick the box, and the frame says how many were left out, so you do not wonder why a word you know has no picture.

It says what is not here.

With nothing installed it says so, and sends you to this page (or says where to go, in the studio run on its own); with a download not finished it lists what has come, and says how far it got.

What goes into your page is always a copy of the picture, kept in the document’s own pictures (or the deck’s), named arasaac-<number>.png; the same pictogram twice is one file. An update of the pictograms never changes what a page already holds, and the page stays whole when you move it. In the editor the first pictogram also writes ARASAAC’s credit as the last paragraph of the document, once; it stays until you take it out, and if you take out the last pictogram, take the credit out too. A deck does not write a credit by itself: if you share a deck whose cards hold pictograms, give the credit with it (the licence says why, and LICENSE-ARASAAC.txt has the words).

6. Who may use it#

Any device that has been let in may get, update, stop and remove anything on this page: the computer, a phone on the Wi-Fi, another computer. The door’s pill says any device let in, and there is no lock line and no dead button anywhere on it.

It is safe to leave open because nothing a device sends becomes anything that is fetched. A language is one of the forty names ARASAAC’s own API lists, a size is one of two numbers, and a pictogram is an integer out of the list ARASAAC gave; each picture is checked to be a whole PNG before it is put in place. Whoever presses the button gets the same files, from the same two hosts. Removing is refused while a download is running.

7. Where the files are#

arasaac/, beside dict/, mt/ and stt/. It is kept by every update, is left out of backups (it is somebody else’s work, and fetched again by a button), and git ignores it. Once it is here, everything works with no connection.

If you share a document that holds pictograms, give the credit with it: LICENSE-ARASAAC.txt has the text to use.

8. If something goes wrong#

You stopped it.

The page says so, and says what is kept. Carry on.

ARASAAC’s host did not answer, or said it was busy.

Parseh waits and tries again, four times; then it stops and says so in a sentence, with what came kept. Try again carries on from there.

There is not enough room.

It does not start, and says how much it needs and how much is free. Make room, or choose fewer languages or the smaller pictures.

A folder made by another Parseh.

If arasaac/ holds a manifest of a shape this Parseh does not know, the page says so: Get it makes it again, Remove… takes it away.

ARASAAC has no picture of some pictograms at this size.

The page says how many, once it is done. They are looked for again when ARASAAC changes their record.