Chinese emoji, with a twist

Submitted by Judy Hanning on Mon, 2017-06-12 18:00
Emoji’s are a Japanese invention that became very popular in the West. There are some new emoji’s being released this summer that are supposed to be Chinese based. These include a Chinese food take out emoji and some fortune cookie emoji’s. The article describes how these are westernized concepts and not at all actually Chinese.
The first emoji was invented in 1999 in Japan and the inventor did not expect it to become to globally popular. Thanks to the smartphone and the internet, it has. Emoji’s are so popular because they can be read and understood no matter what language you speak; they are global.
Most linguists say emoji are not currently a language—they’re paralinguistic, the equivalent of hand gestures or voice tone. But for people who use them, it’s almost like fighting for a word that [shows] you exist. When you come up with a word to describe your population, it’s a very powerful thing.
~ Victor Mair

Key Takeaways:

1
An emoji artist finds their work ironic.
2
Two out of four of the new Chinese emoji’s are not even Chinese.
3
They are American symbols for Chinese culture.
Read the full article here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=32831