Can you imagine online communication without using emojis? I can’t. Emojis became the essential part of everyday communication and when I receive message without emojis I feel it’s too serious.

Emojis (“picture characters”) originated from the Japan. In 1997 it was added on Japanese mobile phones. The word emoji comes from the Japanese 絵 (e ≅ picture) + 文字 (moji ≅ written character). Currently Unicode Consortium (check their website) is responsible for maintaining emojis upto the date and adding new emojis. Anyone can submit a proposal for an emoji character.

Emojis and emoticons are not the same. The most popular emoticons are 🙂 🙁 🙂 🙁 (“)(-_-)(“). Now emoticons are still in use but emojis are more versatile. Also emojis and pictographs are not the same. Pictograph is a symbol (U+26E8 ⛨ BLACK CROSS ON SHIELD).

The most popular emojis according to emojitracker.com are 😂, ❤️, 😭, 😊 and emoji with heart in eyes. For some selected emojis available 5 skin tones to represent the need of diversity. Every year no more than 70 characters are added.

Thank you for subscribing. If you have not, subscribe now 😊