What Does Emoji Mean?
Emoji is a derivative of three Japanese words “e”, “mo”, and “Ji” meaning; “picture”, “write”, and “character” respectively.
Fast forward today, we are dependent on text messages and digital communication. Thankfully, emojis have brought life to digital communication. It becomes pretty easy to express your emotions using emojis. The Oxford English Dictionary added the word Emoji in 2013 and defined this term as “a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion.”
What is an Emoji?
Emoji is a way of communication that contains visual gestures. The list of characters and elements facilitates digital communication and is widely accepted in communication. Technically, emoji contains 2 bytes and requires a 12×12 pixel area where it is drawn.
The various genres of emojis are:
- Facial expressions
- Places
- Different objects
- Animals
- Types of weathers
- Flags
- And many more
History of Emoji
The history of using the first emoji dates back to 1972. Bruce Parello created the first digital emoji on the first e-learning system, PLATO IV.
However, modern emojis evolved from emoticons. Shigetaka Kurita was the first who create 176 emojis in 1999. He used these emojis for his company’s email system.
It took more than 10 years for emojis to get popular, and widely accepted by many nations. Today, this pictogram or smiley liven up your electronic messages and web pages.
Emojis became a worldwide phenomenon in 2010 when Unicode programmers adopted emojis. At present, their standardized lists contain upto 2,789 emojis. Now Apple contains an official Emoji keyboard in their operating system in 2011.
Interesting Facts About Emojis
- This term is now recognized as a language that is used to express emotions. It has got much popularity and is known as the world’s fastest-growing language.
- July 17 is the day of the “global celebration of emoji”. On this world emoji day, many events are planned each year where people come out with innovative ideas for emojis and showcase their products related to emojis.
- You might be amazed to know that people send around 3472222 emojis per second on Facebook messenger.
- The most commonly used emoji is the “Face with Tears of Joy”.
- Research showed that content containing emojis has more potential to increase engagement than content that does not contain emojis.
- Unicode keeps on adding new emojis frequently. This way, you can add fun and emotions to your chats and digital content. In 2018, upto 157 new emojis were announced and added.
- Many websites and apps containing keyboards are available that can turn your selfies into emojis. They perfectly customize your selfies into emojis.
- The song “Drunk in Love” is translated into emojis in a video of Fan Jesse Hill.
Emoji and Digital Communication Problems
Since emojis are used to express your feelings or to ease digital communication, it causes many communication problems. These problems arise due to contextual interpretation of these digital symbols or emojis. Sometimes the receiver does not interpret the meaning of emoji and perceives it in the wrong direction.
Likewise, technology also plays a vital role in the misinterpretation of emojis. The operating system or platform of the receiver does not show the emoji that the receiver sent. This causes many misunderstandings and wrong perceptions.
This was all about the word “Emoji” and Emoji meaning. From meaning to interesting facts, we hope this article would help you know everything that you need to know.
Stay tuned with us to learn more modern slang!