Finally, the world has a universal language. It’s called the Emoji language and world over, people understand it the same way.
For a generation that lives on mobile phones, technology and social media, the emojis have come in handy to go beyond the language barrier. Is this indicative of us going back in time where pictographic depiction existed or is it a step forward towards a ‘one village’ concept?
That only time will tell, but for now, emojis rule the world of technology.
Emojis have been around for 20 years old now. Emoticons, their punctuation-based precursors, turned 35 in 2018. Both have found acceptance across continents, devices, situations and cultures, to change the way we communicate. 92% of the total online users, regardless of which language they speak, use emojis in text and email.
Let’s understand what this concoction is all about.
What are Emojis?
The words emoji, smilies, and emoticons are often used interchangeably, but they mean very different things.
Emoticon is a pictographic representation that is created by combining different typographic characters. For e.g 🙂 means a smile.
Whereas, an emoji is a pre-defined ideogrammatic character, based on the defined standard from Unicode. For e.g 😄 .
How they came into practice
Emojis and emoticons help people by making texting easier. They infuse writing with a level of expression that can be understood by all.
The original emoji character set was designed in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, for Japanese phone carrier NTT DoCoMo on their i-mode platform, the world’s first internet enabled mobile service. Kurita-san intended to create a set of characters that could cover the entire breadth of human emotions.
The future of cultural and visual assimilation
The popularity of emoji is such that they are universally understood, even outside the original meanings associated with particular symbols from Japanese society – if not fully, but at least as an approximation of what the sender and receiver mutually understand.
Recently, we’ve witnessed an explosion of emoji — both in messaging and in the real world. As these ideograms and symbols become more widespread and understood, they have become a part of mainstream culture of every society.
Need help?
If you’re not quite sure where to get started with emoji, or what particular characters mean, you can head to ‘Emojipedia’, a glossary of emoji across multiple platforms.
Emoji have also evolved to become typographic characters in themselves.
Artists have embraced emojis in their art work. The Emoji Art Fair in New York surveyed the spread of emoji through popular culture in the form of print, textile, and interactive exhibitions. Some of the key pieces were an Emoji Autism Facial Recognition Therapy installation, a printed zine that accompanied the show and featured essays on emoji and culture.
Today there are already 1,620 emojis in Unicode 8.
Emojis are truly becoming the global pull that are bridging people across faiths, religions, cultures, continents and boundaries. How do they culminate into something more advanced and iconic in the future, has to be seen.