An emoji, a digital communication tool that visually depicts emotions, objects, or symbols, has its roots traced back to 1982 when Scott Fahlman introduced emoticons. The evolution of emojis took a significant leap in 1997 when J-Phone launched the first set. By 1999, Shigetaka Kurita had developed 176 emojis for NTT DoCoMo. Emojis have since become a global phenomenon, deeply embedded in popular culture, serving to express emotions and substitute words in digital communication. The progression of technology has broadened the spectrum of emoji expressions. The Unicode Consortium holds the responsibility for preserving and updating emoji standards. Despite the ongoing demand[1] for additional emoji designs from businesses and the general public, the Consortium strives to maintain a balance between introducing new emojis and supporting historic scripts.
An emoji (/ɪˈmoʊdʒiː/ ih-MOH-jee; plural emoji or emojis; Japanese: 絵文字, romanized: emoji,Japanese pronunciation: [emoꜜʑi]) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation as well as to replace words as part of a logographic system. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, expressions, activity, food and drinks, celebrations, flags, objects, symbols, places, types of weather, animals and nature.
Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e (絵, 'picture') + moji (文字, 'character'); the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The first emoji set was created by Japanese phone carrier SoftBank in 1997, with emoji becoming increasingly popular worldwide in the 2010s after Unicode began encoding emoji into the Unicode Standard. They are now considered to be a large part of popular culture in the West and around the world. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named the Face with Tears of Joy emoji (😂) the word of the year.
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