THE EMOJI DICTIONARY

The 2015 Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year, for the first time, was not even a word at all. It was an Emoji. The “tears of joy” Emoji, specifically, which was the most used around the globe this year.

 

Emojis have been in use since their debut in Japan in 1999, however there was a huge rise in their usage globally in 2015 as shown in the graph below from the Oxford Dictionaries Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We may think of emojis as trivial little pictures with superficial meanings. But these pictographs have really become a part of our vocabulary for informal discourse. A leading mobile technology company, Swiftkey, says, “2015 has truly been the year of the emoji; it’s increasingly becoming the most popular, universal form of communication and self-expression, seemingly evolving as a language in its own right.” Emojis are even more universial than language itself because the images depicted can be understood across cultures and geographical borders.

 

Emojis can do more than just add artistics flare; they can help clear up the uncertainty of intentions and emotional states in texts. For instance, if you wanted to convey that you are happy, you can choose between                          . These hold much more meaning than the basic :) that came before them.However, the one downside of using these little pictographs is that their meaning is quite complex as they are context-dependent and they rely on our subjective perception of what they represent.

 

Sometimes it can be hard to tell what certain Emojis are at all. For instance,

humans are incredibly adept at identifying faces, but the Emoji depictions of facial expressions can be somewhat ambiguous. This is why I created this Emoji dictionary, to clarify how Emojis are actually used and thus how we define their meaning. Throughout this project I found that the way we use Emojis can be very different from how the graphic designers in Japan had intended them to be used. So whether you’re just interested to see if your emoji usage is the norm or if you need a reference of how to use Emojis in general, this site has the answer.