Given the impact emojis have had in written communication already, what if we were to take them as a more serious method of communication? What if we viewed them as essentially a new language, one which has been incorporated into English without our even knowing it? Then, what if we proceeded to evolve that language and iterate upon it? At what point would an emoji be able to convey what can currently only be conveyed with an entire sentence?
Our current emoji set is already extremely vast. It also boasts many emojis which do hold acute meanings within culture. However, I believe we‘ve only scratched the surface of emojis’ potential. Wouldn’t it be interesting to follow this line of questioning and create more emojis that could, in one simple character, represent such ideas as:
- “Terribly sorry, I’m running late but I’m on my way and I’ll be there soon.”
- “I don’t particularly care, you should choose.”
- “I know that may seem a bit embarrassing but I’m proud of it anyway.”
In this article I’ll attempt to explore what emojis are, how they fit into the historical evolution of linguistics and orthography, and their potential impact on the future of human communication.