Some folks say that emojis are “the new emoticons.”

It’s certainly true that emojis can do a lot of the same work that emoticons can do. But emojis can do a lot more

The word emoji is new. It was added into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013. The word comes from the Japanese for “pictograph,” and the fact that emoticon and emoji sound very similar is probably coincidence.

The word emoji entered English around 1997, and I think both the word and the emoji itself gained popularity because it was added as a standard international keyboard on the iPhone in 2011. Emojis are the small digital icons or images that represent everything from a yellow smiley face to a heart, from a soccer ball to an airplane, from clapping hands to a smiling pile of poo (yes, this really is an available emoji).

Emojis can do a couple of things. One thing emojis do very well is express emotion. An emoji can say: “I’m happy,” “I’m sad,” or “I’m tired.” The emojis that express “I’m joking” are really important, because sometimes our humor can be misinterpreted or even lost in a text. So putting a smiley face or a winky face is one way to convey that message. It also can be a way to say, “I’m happy for you,” if you use a thumbs-up with a smiling emoji.

Now, some people are also using emojis to actually replace words in a text message. Here we see a kind of playfulness, where a person may text, “Do you want to get a … ” followed by a wineglass. Or “I need to…” followed by an emoji with a bunch of z’s for sleep.

I even hear that some folks are sending text messages that include no words at all — only emojis. This is really a kind of riddle in which you need to figure out what this string of symbols actually means.

I’m reminded here of the wonderful creativity that we, as speakers, can and do employ when we speak and when we text, and I’m fascinated by what we’re doing with emojis.

This video appears courtesy of LSA Today.