I just learnt to read 絵文字!

And my life has been completely turned upside down by this revelation! I always thought Emoji was just a ‘cutesy’ way of saying emoticon, a way to depict emotions that internet slang had decided was too long a name, so shortened it for textspeak purposes (the only language I remain fluent in from my school days…).

I honestly was taken aback by this and needed to catch my breath. Has WK held any revelations like this for you?

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I had always thought DoCoMo was an abbreviation of some longer words mushed together (and it is) but it turns out どこも is also a real word that’s appropriate. Obviously, that was intentional, but still clever.

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For anyone playing at home, it’s " do communications over the mobile network ". And I honestly now feel like I could have gone the rest of my lift without knowing that…

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Same here. I guess it used to just mean pictograph but the Japanese were the first to start putting them in phones so I guess led to their worldwide name.
Which makes sense, at first I thought that would been a Katakana word but did not know until now that the Japanese played such a major role with emojis

I’m waiting for kids to start combining emoji into compounds, even making small versions that others can be added to. That compound meaning would eventually by consensus come to have a standard meaning everyone knew. Maybe then even give them a sound so they can be spoken out loud.

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… And then maybe they would try to find a way to write them down quickly by hand? Dunno, like a simplified version of the emoji, made up of a series of lines and dots?

Oh, wait…

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Yeah, for writing speed, you’d have to abstract some of them until they only sort-of resembled the original thing, but everyone would still know what it represents. Maybe like ( on the left could mean :slight_smile:

:slight_smile: :gun:

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Joking aside, I think it’s actually already a standard in Russian to type ) instead of : )

Guess the kanji:

#1
:ocean::baby_bottle:

#2
:rescue_worker_helmet:
:pig:

#3
:swan::open_umbrella:

酒 (tsunami, bottle)
家 (helmet on a pig)
礼 (pelican [there was no pelican :smiley:], umbrella)

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tenor%20(1)

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