Symbols are as manifold as there are beings, or even more so. In the past, family crests were symbolic of families, but today's humans seem to be far less interested in what sets them apart from other groups. Instead, we use symbols to assign ourselves to groups of our choice, to shows we 'belong'.
Symbols are atomic in nature, usually don't get split up, although we do combine them sometimes, like in Chinese: the Chinese symbol for Love for instance is a combination of the symbols for 'Roof' and 'Woman'.
The modern humans and their use of the Internet has also given rise to another type of symbol, like WTF, but its use might well be ambiguous: where you understand it to mean "What the F#@k?", I have a totally different interpretation for it...