What is emoji?

Emojis are small digital images or icons used to express emotions, ideas, or concepts in electronic communication. Originating from Japan in the late 1990s, the name "emoji" comes from the Japanese words "e" (picture) and "moji" (character). Emojis have become a universal language and are widely used across various digital platforms, including messaging apps, social media, and emails, to add emotional nuance and context to text.

Emojis cover a wide array of categories, including smiley faces, people, animals, food, activities, travel, objects, symbols, and flags. They have become an integral part of modern communication, helping to convey tone and intent that might be missing from plain text. Emojis can also help bridge language gaps between people speaking different languages.

The Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization, standardizes emojis to ensure they appear similarly across different devices and platforms. New emojis are periodically introduced based on proposals from the public and trends in digital communication.

Emojis continue to evolve, with changes to reflect cultural diversity and inclusivity, such as the introduction of various skin tones, genders, and representations of different kinds of relationships and identities.