Where Did Emoji Come From?
By: Emojichat
Date: 6/1/2011
Introduction
Taken straight from Emoji on Wikipedia:
āEmoji is the Japanese term for picture characters. These "picture characters" are standardized and built into [most Japanese] handsets.ā
Therefore, Emoji can roughly be translated to standardized icons with a meaning. The key word here is standardized. Emoticons are quite different than Emoji being that first; Emoji is a picture that is derived from an actual code. The code, which is easily transferred by email, phones, etc is then sent and finally converted to an icon for the user to see.
Secondly, emoticons (a Portmanteau word or compound word for emotion + icon) are different from emoji in that emoticons is a generic name for characters or pictures meant to display a facial expression or convey emotion from a bodily posture. The first emoticon ":-)" was used on Sep. 9, 1982 by Scott Fahlman but shortly thereafter computer users in east Asia people developed much more complex ASCII (technical name for the "abc123" character set) combinations such as (^-^)/ (person raising one hand to ask a question) and ļ¼¼(^o^)ļ¼ (person raising both hands and cheer).
Emoji truly is not just a bunch of icons or pictures because each emoji represents a unicode character. Before I get into unicode let me explain.
We've all typed on a keyboard and at some point became frustrated and mashed on a little bit. Perhaps that is a bad example. If you open Microsoft Word or another program that allows you to select from a number fonts if you scroll down the list eventually you will see a font that shows squares or boxes where characters are supposed to be. We know that a character is supposed to show up in that position but the computer or program doesn't have a way to display it. Thats what emoji is. Emoji is a set of codes that aren't technically supposed to be displayed but converted so we can see what it is. Emoji is a set of codes each identifying a different "thing".
Our friends at unicode.org explain some interesting facts about Emoji. who will kindly explain what makegive us their definition which gives props to one of the largest moble phone companies in Japan:
ā
Emoji are often pictographsāimages of things such as faces, weather, ... emotions ... or activities.(ēµµęå) are Japanese emoticons first introduced in DoCoMo i-mode but since integrated into the mail and web services of all mobile carriers in Japan.
ā
āEmoji (ēµµęå) are Japanese emoticons first introduced in DoCoMo i-mode but since integrated into the mail and web services of all mobile carriers in Japan. ā
DoCoMo i-mode! That explains everything! Seriously though, what this means is there are 461 icons that have been approved to
we have to give it to DoCoMo because without their idea we wouldn't have sweet picture words that are just waiting to be unlocked on nearly any iPhone and iPod Touch.
Behold, The Beloved iPhone Emoji Keyboard.
I know what you all are thinking. iShould go out and buy an iPhone right now so I can start using them! HaHa. Good idea. You are wise beyond your years. But wait! What do you mean they need to be unlocked? The phone doesn't have them already installed? Apple doesn't provide them for free?
Well the answer is slightly tricky; But yes, they are free. Any iPhone or iPod Touch version 2.2 or higher has the pictures stored already on the device and you can see when they are sent to you but but the way to insert them into messages is hidden and needs to just be unlocked. How do you unlock them you ask? Well, the answer to that question happens to be the second biggest reason this site was created!
āThe answer to that question is the second biggest reason this site was created!ā
What answer? Tell me! Tellme! Tellme! Okay, Emoji should be free for everyone! Emoji is meant to be free with your iPhone. Don't settle for anything less than Free Emoji. Emoji...is...free... Emoji Free! If you didn't catch that or click there, "Emoji free" is the name of the most popular Emoji Unlocking Apps if you didn't catch that
iEmoji.com says
ā Please do not ever buy an app to unlock your emojis. They are meant to steal your money. ā
Not only that, half of them don't work or take your keyboard away after a short time so you'll buy it again! You should always use "Emoji Free" or "Spell Number"
(Disclaimer: This site is in no way affiliated with the iEmoji iPhone App).
All the emoji apps job is to change a 0 to a 1 in a file saved on your iPhone. It's neat Emoji icons on Apple devices are stored as little .png image files on the device. When you run "Emoji Free" or the "Spell Number" app that unlocks the "Japanese Emoji Keyboard", that's all this is doing. It allows you to enable the International Emoji Keyboard.
tony-- i had hidden the stuff enclosed in this block, the last time i worked on it
Taken straight from the emoji wiki article:
āEmoji is the Japanese term for picture characters...The picture characters are standardized and built into [most Japanese] handsets.ā
Therefore emoji can roughly be translated to "Icons with a meaning." You may have already known that, but pukupi.com will kindly give us their definition too which gives props to one of the largiest moble phone companies in Japan:
āEmoji (ēµµęå) are Japanese emoticons first introduced in DoCoMo i-mode but since integrated into the mail and web services of all mobile carriers in Japan. ā
DoCoMo i-mode! That explains everything! Seriously though, we have to give it to DoCoMo because without their idea we wouldn't have sweet picture words that are just waiting to be unlocked on nearly any iPhone and iPod Touch.
The beloved iPhone emoji keyboard
Well that explains everything! iShould go buy an iPhone right now and start using them. But wait, why do they need to be unlocked? Apple doesn't provide them for free? I need to buy an app to use emojis?
Emoji should be free for everyone! Emoji is free. Please do not ever buy an app to unlock your emojis. They are meant to steal your money. All the emoji icons on Apple devices are stored as little image files on the device. The app is required to enable the "Japanese Emoji Keyboard", basically changing one character on the device from a 0 to a 1 so the iPhone shows the option. If your iPhone was jailbroken You could edit the proper file com.apple.Preferences.plist change it from a 0 to a 1 and you could enable the emoji keyboard in "international keyboards". Since your iPhone is not jailbroken yet, just leave it that way and use this quick tutorial to unlock emoji
Why does emoji need to be unlocked? This question is my personal favorite because it involves a lot of opinion.
There isn't a whole lot of information on this topic but after some research iEmoji.com has come to a conclusion. Please let me belabor the point. Since DoCoMo "invented" these things there have been 3 other mobile phone carriers that have followed suit. They made emojis too! (Apple makes the 4th) Why is that an issue? Well, when the 3 initial companies made emoji icons, they didn't really care about interoperability infact, they were probably against it. You see, emoji has an underlying "character" so if "F1" represented a smiling face in DoCoMo, in Softbank's emoji set the emoji represented by character "F1" is the emoji sad face while "F2" is the happy face.
For example:
ā
Hi you are a alsdkfjalsdkfj &eq;> Hi you are a {star}
ā
It's humorous though because they all use an extremely similiar set of emoji picture words. It the same basic set of emojis, but they made it so you can't use them between carriers without a carrier specific emoji conversion process that amounts to a bunch of politics. Hey, DoCoMo, Softbank got mouthes to feed too right? Don't get me started ;)
Apple has been quoted saying that the reason they are keeping American users from emojis is because Google, Apple, and a number of technical companies around the world are trying to fully standardize the picture words so you don't need a conversion table to know which picture to show for each code.
Here is a typical scenario of a conversation between carriers in Japan:
Frederike's girlfriend just texted him "Hi, how are you? " but on his phone it said: "Hi, how are you? " Confusing!
Do I dare ask you your opinion of Apple's position...?
Certainly! Apple's emojis are *cough* racist! No.. They didn't create them non politically correct emojis on purpose. Emoji has been in Japan for a while and only recently has it spread to Europe and some others. It is obvious just by looking at the icons that they are closely tied into Japanese culture. To keep from getting flamed too much Apple (thankfully) lazy locked down emoji on American iPhone handsets. *Cough* Awesome *cough*
Can I unlock the emoji keyboard on my iPod Touch too? Yes, as long as you have version 2.2 or above. Click here to check.
Can I be done now...?Wait! Lets go back to some more opinionated ranting please!
You gotta hand it to Apple on this one though. Not only did Apple bring emojis to America brought, the emojis they brought are LEGIT
You see, Japan, even in all their "superior technically advanced" mobile state where still using emojis that belonged on a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Super NES, Maybe, if that. Yes Japan, 1995 called they want their emojis back. And this is the reason for this site! Check it out:
DoCoMo's emoji: 
Apple's equivelent:
LoL People would laugh if iEmoji used icons that looked like that.
Frequently asked questions:
So someone sends an emoji will you get it?
Answer: Probably not unless you two are on the same mobile carrier.
What is with all this iPhone emoji hype?
Emojis are awesome! I'm pretty sure iPhone users already realize eventually we will do away with words and talk in cute icons and phrases
Talk in cute icons and phrases!
Why? Because it's fun! Plus, less typing.
and when the user recieved the text they would replace it with the smileysending a bunch of images of smileys around isn't really efficient so they found a bunch of charactershere should be a way to send a :) or :( without
ese icons all have an underlying "character" that will represent a certain emoji or smiley/picture. Moreover, these characters have been standardized and written down in big books after arguing about wheither or not the icon should have a face on it or not. much like a language would.meaning people argued that just like an actual language
Ok, so what does that have anything to do with these smileys? All that is important to know is they were developed in Japan and we can thank the Domo people for bringing life to our texts and tweets since they are on the iPhone.
http://unicode.org/~scherer/emoji4unicode/snapshot/utc.html
This site works best with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome :)
Secondly, emoticons (a Portmanteau word or compound word for emotion + icon) are different from emoji in that emoticons is a generic name for characters or pictures meant to display a facial expression or convey emotion from a bodily posture. The first emoticon ":-)" was used on Sep. 9, 1982 by Scott Fahlman but shortly thereafter computer users in east Asia people developed much more complex ASCII (technical name for the "abc123" character set) combinations such as (^-^)/ (person raising one hand to ask a question) and ļ¼¼(^o^)ļ¼ (person raising both hands and cheer).
Emoji truly is not just a bunch of icons or pictures because each emoji represents a unicode character. Before I get into unicode let me explain.
Behold, The Beloved iPhone Emoji Keyboard.
iEmoji.com says
ā Please do not ever buy an app to unlock your emojis. They are meant to steal your money. ā
Not only that, half of them don't work or take your keyboard away after a short time so you'll buy it again! You should always use "Emoji Free" or "Spell Number"
(Disclaimer: This site is in no way affiliated with the iEmoji iPhone App).
(Disclaimer: This site is in no way affiliated with the iEmoji iPhone App).
All the emoji apps job is to change a 0 to a 1 in a file saved on your iPhone. It's neat Emoji icons on Apple devices are stored as little .png image files on the device. When you run "Emoji Free" or the "Spell Number" app that unlocks the "Japanese Emoji Keyboard", that's all this is doing. It allows you to enable the International Emoji Keyboard.
tony-- i had hidden the stuff enclosed in this block, the last time i worked on it
Taken straight from the emoji wiki article:
The beloved iPhone emoji keyboard
āEmoji is the Japanese term for picture characters...The picture characters are standardized and built into [most Japanese] handsets.ā
Therefore emoji can roughly be translated to "Icons with a meaning." You may have already known that, but pukupi.com will kindly give us their definition too which gives props to one of the largiest moble phone companies in Japan:
āEmoji (ēµµęå) are Japanese emoticons first introduced in DoCoMo i-mode but since integrated into the mail and web services of all mobile carriers in Japan. ā
DoCoMo i-mode! That explains everything! Seriously though, we have to give it to DoCoMo because without their idea we wouldn't have sweet picture words that are just waiting to be unlocked on nearly any iPhone and iPod Touch.
The beloved iPhone emoji keyboard
Well that explains everything! iShould go buy an iPhone right now and start using them. But wait, why do they need to be unlocked? Apple doesn't provide them for free? I need to buy an app to use emojis?
Emoji should be free for everyone! Emoji is free. Please do not ever buy an app to unlock your emojis. They are meant to steal your money. All the emoji icons on Apple devices are stored as little image files on the device. The app is required to enable the "Japanese Emoji Keyboard", basically changing one character on the device from a 0 to a 1 so the iPhone shows the option. If your iPhone was jailbroken You could edit the proper file com.apple.Preferences.plist change it from a 0 to a 1 and you could enable the emoji keyboard in "international keyboards". Since your iPhone is not jailbroken yet, just leave it that way and use this quick tutorial to unlock emoji
Why does emoji need to be unlocked? This question is my personal favorite because it involves a lot of opinion.
There isn't a whole lot of information on this topic but after some research iEmoji.com has come to a conclusion. Please let me belabor the point. Since DoCoMo "invented" these things there have been 3 other mobile phone carriers that have followed suit. They made emojis too! (Apple makes the 4th) Why is that an issue? Well, when the 3 initial companies made emoji icons, they didn't really care about interoperability infact, they were probably against it. You see, emoji has an underlying "character" so if "F1" represented a smiling face in DoCoMo, in Softbank's emoji set the emoji represented by character "F1" is the emoji sad face while "F2" is the happy face.
For example:
ā
Hi you are a alsdkfjalsdkfj &eq;> Hi you are a {star}
ā
It's humorous though because they all use an extremely similiar set of emoji picture words. It the same basic set of emojis, but they made it so you can't use them between carriers without a carrier specific emoji conversion process that amounts to a bunch of politics. Hey, DoCoMo, Softbank got mouthes to feed too right? Don't get me started ;)
Apple has been quoted saying that the reason they are keeping American users from emojis is because Google, Apple, and a number of technical companies around the world are trying to fully standardize the picture words so you don't need a conversion table to know which picture to show for each code.
Here is a typical scenario of a conversation between carriers in Japan:
Frederike's girlfriend just texted him "Hi, how are you? " but on his phone it said: "Hi, how are you? " Confusing!
Frederike's girlfriend just texted him "Hi, how are you? " but on his phone it said: "Hi, how are you? " Confusing!
Do I dare ask you your opinion of Apple's position...?
Certainly! Apple's emojis are *cough* racist! No.. They didn't create them non politically correct emojis on purpose. Emoji has been in Japan for a while and only recently has it spread to Europe and some others. It is obvious just by looking at the icons that they are closely tied into Japanese culture. To keep from getting flamed too much Apple (thankfully) lazy locked down emoji on American iPhone handsets. *Cough* Awesome *cough*
Can I unlock the emoji keyboard on my iPod Touch too? Yes, as long as you have version 2.2 or above. Click here to check.
Can I be done now...?Wait! Lets go back to some more opinionated ranting please!
You gotta hand it to Apple on this one though. Not only did Apple bring emojis to America brought, the emojis they brought are LEGIT
You see, Japan, even in all their "superior technically advanced" mobile state where still using emojis that belonged on a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Super NES, Maybe, if that. Yes Japan, 1995 called they want their emojis back. And this is the reason for this site! Check it out:
DoCoMo's emoji: Apple's equivelent:
LoL People would laugh if iEmoji used icons that looked like that.
Apple's equivelent:
LoL People would laugh if iEmoji used icons that looked like that.
Frequently asked questions:
So someone sends an emoji will you get it? Answer: Probably not unless you two are on the same mobile carrier. What is with all this iPhone emoji hype? Emojis are awesome! I'm pretty sure iPhone users already realize eventually we will do away with words and talk in cute icons and phrases Talk in cute icons and phrases! Why? Because it's fun! Plus, less typing. and when the user recieved the text they would replace it with the smileysending a bunch of images of smileys around isn't really efficient so they found a bunch of charactershere should be a way to send a :) or :( without ese icons all have an underlying "character" that will represent a certain emoji or smiley/picture. Moreover, these characters have been standardized and written down in big books after arguing about wheither or not the icon should have a face on it or not. much like a language would.meaning people argued that just like an actual language Ok, so what does that have anything to do with these smileys? All that is important to know is they were developed in Japan and we can thank the Domo people for bringing life to our texts and tweets since they are on the iPhone. http://unicode.org/~scherer/emoji4unicode/snapshot/utc.html This site works best with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome :)
The emoji keyboard unlocked on an iPhone.
People Using Emoji Now!
