Oct 25th, 2015, 12:09 PM

The New Language of Emoji

By Rachael Fong-Gurzinsky
(Photo: People.com)
A picture is worth a thousand words – and today we just don’t have time for that many words.

Last week my mother sent me a text regarding my upcoming birthday. The word “present” was replaced by a small wrapped present emoji and finished off with a period like any other sentence.

I would never have thought twice about a text like this, but this was from the fingers of my less-than-tech-savvy mother. Texts from my mom and Instagram photos captioned only in symbols show how much emoji have penetrated our language system.

Emoji -- Japanese for “picture character” -- have developed from their original combinations of symbols and letters such as the familiar :-)  Unicode, the company responsible for ensuring consistent coding and representation of text and symbols among devices worldwide, brought our beloved emoji into standardization back in 2010. Because of the widespread popularization of smart phones and high demand outside of Japan, the selection of emoji grows more diverse and extensive all the time. Unicode’s most recent update to the emoji keyboard includes the long-awaited middle finger, taco, and unicorn emoji to name a few, as well as 44 new country flags and an array of religious symbols including a mosque and synagogue. Arguably the most significant update, however, was introduced a few months back: the addition of multiracial options for all human characters, with options for pale, cream white, moderate brown, dark brown, black, and the default yellow skinned emoji.

Multiracial Emoji (Image: International Business Times)

With an arsenal as vast as this, the emoji set allows for detailed representation without any words at all. The Japanese culture and language have always been based on images, while English has traditionally relied on words and descriptions. The rise of digital media has devalued thorough, wordy descriptions, giving way to visual representations as a priority. People today receive most of their information on their mobile phones. With less time to read lengthy text messages and wordy articles, emoji get a message across in a succinct and lighthearted way.

Brands have caught on to the popularity of emoji as well. Domino’s pizza, for example, has created a whole campaign around the picture characters, starting of course with the pizza emoji. Dominos’ pseudo campaign called “emoji literacy” is complete with a mock PSA claiming that 40 percent of Americans don’t know how to read or write in emoji, as well as a printable deck of emoji flashcards to solve the problem. The campaign comes full circle by introducing the company’s new quick ordering service, in which anyone with a smart phone can order a pizza by texting or tweeting a pizza emoji to Domino’s and confirming their order with a thumbs-up emoji.

BBC news has also jumped on the trend by releasing a “news quiz of the week” entirely in emoji, targeting younger readers and prompting them to decode the emoji news. The Aloft Hotel in New York has now launched a text-in all emoji room service ordering menu for the ultimate convenience and minimum effort.

Other popular representations of emoji include the life story of Miley Cyrus and the tale of Les Misarables. In 2013, the Library of Congress acquired and recognized “Emoji Dick” as an official art form. Fred Benenson, the man behind the translation of literary classic “Moby Dick” into emoji, used a kickstarter to fund the project in which over 800 people were paid via Amazon Turk to translate the novel’s 10,000 sentences.

This new emoji language is based on context, however. We can understand the string of characters representing Miley’s life because we know her “humble country girl to arguably insane pop star” story. When we see a photo of fireworks on Instagram, captioned with the fireworks, American flag, and beer emoji, we decipher the meaning to be something along the lines of “happy 4th of July.” Even “Emoji Dick” includes the text in English below the emoji on each page to give the viewer context. That being said, we cannot discount the significance these characters hold. Their widespread use is testament to their power.

President Obama thanks Japan for "manga and anime, and, of course, emojis" (Photo: The New Yorker)

They work because they’re not complicated. Everyone understands graphics; they transcend generations and languages, and have nothing at all to do with understanding how to use “modern technology.” My mother texts with little to no punctuation, causing her innocent messages to come off as harsh and angry (for example, “Okay that’s fine.”) When she throws in a smiley face emoji kissing out hearts, however, the storm clouds roll over and the true meaning of the text immediately becomes clear.

If language is, by definition, “a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings,” then let me go ahead and add “fluent in emoji” to my resume right now.