“Emoji is the death of language” this is true. However, sometimes we know things but still have to compromise and deal with them. Moreover, this is what is happening right now in today’s world. Therefore, this article is all about “Emojipedia”.
In addition, it is divided into seven heads. Furthermore, this article is a well-researched piece that covers different dimensions and raises the issue, which should be raised and left with a question that will be answered down the line.
Historical Background
The word “Emoji” came from Japanese linguistic and is described as “pictograph”, and the myth that emoji has an etymological link with the word “emoticon” is wrong; it is coincidental. According to MoMA, “e” means picture while “Moji” means character.
In the 1990s, in Japan, there was Japanese mobile phone operator DoCoMo. This company used a heart pictograph option onto a cheap pager, which was a great move by the company and a massive success.
However, later they came up with a new version which was released and geared toward the business class, but without a “heart” pictograph. This led to an outcry. And users detested and left DoCoMo and signed up with other pager companies that had adopted the heart.
In addition, the inventor of the Emoji, Shigetaka Kurita, told The Guardian that when he knew that symbols had to be part of any texting service, that was his main inspiration. And this move turned into the journey of Emoji and the DoCoMo Company decided on a set of 176 pixelated characters inspired by basic concepts, for instance, food, weather and feelings.
And in 1999, DoCoMo phones launched the first set of emojis.
The original emojis weren’t vibrant and vivid. They were in black and white and confined to 12 by 12 pixels. However, later on, the first colour emoji appeared in 1999 and other Japanese companies were coming up with their versions such as yellow.
Kurita told The Guardian, “I think the next step for emoji will be more localisation. The introduction of the iPhones, where users all have access to the same stock of emojis has been a great help. Emojis have grown because they meet a need among mobile phone users.” He added, “I would say the heart is my all-time favourite.”
The Emergence Of Emoji Worldwide
The world before or after 2007 is so rapt to imagine and iPhone played a key role in escalating the swift growth of the emoji. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said in his introduction to the product, “Apple was entering a market where the existing competitors weren’t all that great; they were either somewhat hard to use and dumb, or hard to use and somewhat dumb.”
The role of the iPhone is immense and remarkable for the rapid growth of digital language or universal language of the emoji and it is impossible to imagine the global Emoji phenomenon without the iPhone.
Steve Jobs had answered that backdrop of the original model made by mobile Aficionados:
- The lack of 3G connectivity.
- The inability to install third-party apps.
And when iPhone 3G launched in 2007. Apple didn’t have any installation of emojis. However, they later provided a set of pictographs for Japanese users with iOS 2.2. Later the Unicode consortium was established and codified emoji in 2007.
Veteran Japanese tech journalist Nobuyuki Hayashi said that if the initial iPhone carrier were someone else, they might not have successfully persuaded Steve Jobs to add the emoji to the iPhone. “Apple’s effort in japan have resonated around the world” and “Apple came from nowhere to dominate an insular market, eventually integrated with it, and brought some of its best elements to everywhere else.”
Is Emoji A Universal Language?
No wonder Oxford Dictionary in 2015 bestowed this honour not a word, but an Emoji—the face with tears of joy. And emoji spread like wildfire, especially among peers.
“Emoji has come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessive”. However, it is not wrong to say Emojis have different meanings in different parts of the world and sometimes it is confusing too. If it is interpreted differently in different parts, then the question is, how could emoji be a universal language?
In 2015, a British software mobile keyboard called swiftkey carried out a study to learn how speakers of 16 different languages and regions use emoji. Moreover, this study resulted in the “Emoji Report” and here are some fascinating core findings:
The top five Emojis of happy faces, sad faces, hearts and hand gestures and romance are used by 77% of the population.
- The Heart Emoji is most widely used by French, four times more than in another language.
- Arabic speakers use flowers and plants emoji at more than four times the average rate.
- Americans love a good rainbow Emoji and use those 30% more than average.
- Australian English speakers’ use the drug-association Emoji 65% more than average, alcohol-themed emoji at double the average rate.
- Brazilian users sent emoji associated with religion, such as the prayer hands, church, and star in the night sky, at more than double the average rate.
- Canadian English speakers are the most violent in their Emoji use, sending the gun, knife, punching fist, fire explosion, skull and bomb a rate 50% higher than average.
SwiftKey co-founder and CTO said, “Emoji has truly become a global phenomenon.”
According to a 2018 study titled emoji and communicative action, it is a mistake to think of emoji as having inherent universal meaning. There are some contentions: heart always means love, but it could be referred to as the physical heart related to disease, friendship or form of fondness and face-covering emoji use bashful or concealing laughter.
This study concluded that “emoji is a universal competent of written language, but meaning and usage is not universal”.
However, above all contentions, we need to understand that everything has a double-edged sword, and emoji is one of them. According to the book titled The Emoji Code by Vyvyan Evans, he unravelled the positive aspects of the emoji in the cutting-edge 21st century.
He brings forward the other side of the emoji. The comparison which we are making between English and Emoji is right from other perspectives. However, it is important to understand that this comparison is somehow not downrightly valid. For instance, English is not the first language like, Mandarin (900 million) and Spanish (427 million) have more native speakers. English has 339 million native speakers, with a further 603 million speakers who use it as a second language.
According to research conducted by Vyvyan Evans, he stated that 80% of adult smartphones users (18 to 65 years old) regularly use emoji in their text messages. He also pointed out that the emoji is so prominent and robust because there is a rapid demise of textual forms of slang—lol, lolz, lmao, omg—which have been replaced by the emoji.
Vyvyan Evans stated, “Some argue that emoji is a step backwards to the dark ages of illiteracy making us so poorer comminatory. But this view is nothing more than ill-informed and blinkered cultural elitism.”
According to research conducted by him, he mentions the observation, “Emoji is not relevant for the long form of written communication, for literature complex prose, and issues of literacy. However, asserting that emoji will make us poorer in communication is like saying that using facial expressions in conversations makes your ideas more difficult to understand.
“This idea is nonsensical. It is a false analogy to compare emoji to the language of Shakespeare; emoji is not a replacement for language.”
Indeed, emoji enables users to better express their emotions and even appears to help them to become more effective digital communicators. He also mentions that recent projects have taken advantage of the emoji, such as the Swedish children’s charity that has developed a set of spoken emoji to help a victim of domestic abuse.
Another example is educational programmer where Emoji-like characters teach children to express their emotions better.” He adds, “For better or for worse, we’re all speaking Emoji now.”
Decoding Emojipedia
As Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang theory puts it, “Let’s begin with the premise that everything you’ve known up to this point is wrong.” We all know that emojis are the same and interpreted in the same way. Here is the catch and there are some unknown facts that we must know before using these emojis:
- ?—A girl with too much sass? Hardly. She is at the information desk. The outstretched hand is a “how may I help you?” gesture.
- ?—High-five Emoji. We know how many times this emoji has graced your status, waiting for a miracle. It’s not a praying hand. It is, in fact, a high-five.
- ?—Weary Cat Face emoji. This cat isn’t surprised or awed. It is just tired.
- ?—It was popularly known as poop emoji. However, it is the ice cream smiley.
- ?—Dizzy emoji doesn’t denote a shooting star. This emoticon signifies dizziness.
- ?—This does not mean a man in deep thoughts; it means bowing down to express respect or an apology in Japanese culture.
There are some Emoji that have different meanings in different countries. It is fascinating as well as little surprising that emoji cannot be a universal language because of different interpretations. For instance:
- ?—Thumbs-up emoji is an insult in Middle East countries like Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. In Middle East countries, it means “one-finger salute”, essentially an obscene gesture.
- ?—Happy Poop emoji in Japan means “wish good luck”. However, in other countries, it means something silly, mockery.
- ?—Applauding Hands is an erotic invitation to sex in China. However, in other countries, it is used to congratulate.
- ?—The Rock on sign in Latin countries like Cuba, Spain, Brazil and Uruguay means “wearing horns” (adultery). However, in other countries it means cool.
Psychological Effects Of Emoji
As we all know, in this digital age we can’t deny the fact that we all are now OK with the emoji world of digital communication. Here are some psychological effects on human sapiens:
- The human brain is changing because we are not born with Emoji digital communication but somehow are developing this skill. According to a study, Emoticons in mind: an event-related potential study, scientists discovered that when we look at a smiley face online, the same parts of the brain are activated as when we look at a real human face. Essentially, social media culture has created a new brain pattern.
- Texting Message Patterns are changing because our brain is reading emoticons more than words. And according to the research paper, Effects of the restriction of hand gestures on resiliency, researchers discovered that if users are not allowed to use gestures, they become less fluent and essentially, emoji are doing what the tone of voice does on the telephone and what expressions and gestures do in the face-to-face examination.
One year ago, there was news when Kate Middleton accidentally revealed her frequently used emoji were bowing woman, a puff of air, cucumber, vomiting face, space invader monster, swearing face, two women holding hands and pineapple. And it is important to understand that if we want to know someone better without asking any questions, see their frequently used emoji, it will be a powerful tool to read someone’s mind.
According to Emoji expert Corinne Sweet, she interpreted the psychology from these emojis and said, “She has to hold in her swear words, anger, and vomit and stay as cool as a cucumber. But she’s also under pressure as everything goes at speed (puff of air) and has to bow to pressure (woman bowing). She values her women friends and sister (woman holding hands) and she has a playful side (space invader).”
Critical Analysis
It is a fact of the matter that we all are living in the digital age. Our lives are interconnected in a virtual world, especially in this pandemic. These emojis played a key role in expressing our emotions digitally to people we often met or never met. Moreover, it is only because of the internet.
According to Vyvyan Evans, “Emoji is a daily necessity and it is personality oils communication.” True. However, it is not tenable still to prove and convince that the emoji is a lifeline now. On the other hand, it is crucial to mull that it is fine if we are using one sticker to express our whole emotions. The myth is that emoji means emotions, no it is not.
In my view, language has its beauty that cannot be expressed in one emoji. We become less expressive in terms of writing and texting and we are using emoji mostly or maybe all the time. For instance, “Accept my warmest congratulations and enjoy your day” could be replaced with wine, thumps and smiley. However, I still prefer words to emojis to read the words and feel the emotion.
We are confining our words only just because of emojis, this is true, and somewhere we accept this new pattern of communication. In a nutshell, I would like to end with a note that “creativeness must be somewhat to make us more prolific and rhetoric, however, emoji is daunting in the digital age more than a creativity”.
References
- Johanna Mayor, The Origin Of The Emoji, SCIENCE FRIDAY
- Justin McCurry, The inventor of Emoji on his famous creations and his all-time favourite, THE GUARDIAN
- Sam Byford, How the iPhone won over Japan and gave the world Emoji, THE VERGE
- Vyvyan Evans, The Emoji Code
- Good to know: what do different emojis mean in different countries? LIFESTYLE ASIA
- Shreyanka Mazumdar, You got these emojis all wrong! TIMES OF INDIA
- The psychology of emojis, THE NEXT WEB
- Radhika Sanghani, What do your emojis say about you? DAILY MAIL