Today, we’ll take a look at emojis.

I know what you’re thinking: “But, word guy, emojis aren’t words, they’re symbols. Has your cheese slipped off your cracker?”

While Mrs. Word Guy would probably answer that question in the affirmative, please hear me out. My reasons for writing about emojis are many. First of all, they reflect the digital world in which we live. They also (as much as I hate to admit it) punctuate our increasingly brief communications with color and interest. Why there’s even a move afoot by at least one guy to turn emoji into an actual language.

Before there were emojis (the plural in Japanese is just “emoji”), there were emoticons. Those old enough to remember them will recall the days when you could make those sideways smiley faces on a typewriter or keyboard. (One of my favorites was Abe Lincoln  ==|:-)}  though there’s not much call for that kind of thing.)

While pictographs go back to the time of hieroglyphics, and pictosymbols such as an ivy leaf were used by 17th-century printers, the first modern emoticons were suggested to a New York Times reporter in 1969 by “Lolita” author Vladimir Nabokov. He mused, “I often think that here should be a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of a concave mark, a supine round racket . . .”

In 1982, Nabokov’s wish would be granted by Carnegie-Mellon computer professor Scott Fahlman, who suggested sending such signs over computer networks. Fahlman’s original emoticon was a smiling face 🙂 but he soon thought that a frowning one 🙁 would be useful in more situations.

Everything would change in 1999, when DoCoMo Phone Company employee Shgetaka Kurita thought that people would rather see a sun symbol on their phones than the word “fair” when checking the weather. His original 180 symbols were inspired by manga street signs (in Japanese, “manga” stands for all kinds of cartooning, comics and animation).

Emojis are now curated by the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit body that approves universal software standards for letters and other characters. Since 2009, it has approved over 3,300 emojis for use across multiple devices.

Taking things even further, a few years ago Apple introduced animojis, which are animated versions of popular emojis that mirror the user’s facial expressions.

And then there’s Fred Benenson, who’s attempting to take emojis to a whole new level by turning them into a real language. “Emoji are now an essential component of how we’re talking to each other,” said Benenson, whose translation(?) of Herman Melville’s 1851 classic is entitled “Emoji Dick” (yes, really).

Not surprisingly, most people don’t give him much chance of succeeding, mainly, said linguist Arika Okrent, because we all use emojis “in arbitrary, individual ways.”

Some Mainers have gotten in on the emoji thing too. First, Luke’s Lobster founder Luke Holden successfully lobbied for the lobster emoji. Then, this year, Cumberland graphic designer Rebecca Blaesing wanted one that was all about diversity and inclusiveness, so she came up with the pinata. It’s hard to beat that.

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”

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