Q: Why is there no emoji for X? How do I propose a new emoji?
Many existing emoji have been added for various reasons. For questions about adding a new emoji, emoji criteria, approvals process and timelines for new approvals, please see the Emoji Submission FAQ.
Q: What are emoji?
Emoji are “picture characters” originally associated with cellulartelephone usage in Japan, but now popular worldwide. The word emojicomes from the Japanese 絵(e ≅ picture) +文字(moji ≅ written character).
Emoji are often pictographs—images of things such as faces, weather,vehicles and buildings, food and drink, animals and plants—or icons thatrepresent emotions, feelings, or activities. Most emoji characters are presentedin color.
Q. What is the plural of emoji?
Both “emoji” and “emojis” are considered acceptable pluralizations of the word emoji in written English. Unicode uses “emoji” as the plural due to the Japanese origin of this word. Other publications such as the Associated Press Stylebook recommend “emojis” as the English plural.
Q: Where can I find out more about emoji in Unicode?
See Unicode Emoji, which introduces the Emoji Subcommittee and its processes, and has links to many emoji-related charts and other resources.UTS #51: Unicode Emoji is the technical introduction to Unicode emoji and their implementation.
Q: Are emoji the same thing as emoticons?
Not exactly. Emoticons (from “emotion” plus “icon”) arespecifically intended to depict facial expression or body posture as a way ofconveying emotion or attitude in e-mail and text messages. They originated asASCII character combinations such as :-) to indicate a smile—and by extension,a joke—and :-( to indicate a frown. In East Asia, a number of more elaboratesequences have been developed, such as (")(-_-)(") showing an upset face withhands raised. Over time, many systems began replacing such sequences withimages, and also began providing ways to input emoticon images directly, suchas a menu or palette. The emoji sets used by Japanese cell phone carrierscontain a large number of characters for emoticon images, along with manyother non-emoticon emoji.
Q. What is the difference between emoji and pictographs?
Pictographs are symbols, such as U+26E8 ⛨ BLACK CROSS ON SHIELD,that are pictorial representations of objects, sometimes quite simplified.
The set of Unicode emoji intersects, but is not the same as the setof pictographs in the Unicode Standard. Some characters are both emoji andpictographs, such as U+1F32D 🌭 HOT DOG. Some characters areemoji but not pictographs, such as U+203C ‼ DOUBLE EXCLAMATION MARK. Somecharacters are not emoji but are pictographs, such asU+26E8 ⛨ BLACK CROSS ON SHIELD.
Q: What are the most popular emoji characters?
The Unicode Consortium has been working to assemble information about how frequently various emoji are used and has made this data available to the public. Emojipedia also keeps a handy list of emoji statistics.
Q: Can you point me to some examples of emojicharacters in Unicode?
The emoji are spread throughout many blocks of Unicode. See Unicode Emoji Charts for a listing of the emoji characters.
Q: Do emoji characters have to look the same wherever they are used?
The current emoji set provides skin tone options for the majority of human emoji. Variations to choose from a woman, man, or a gender neutral person are also provided.
The Unicode Consortium is unable to provide complete customizability of each human emoji. At the present time this means options for hair style, age, or accessories may not be available in every variation. For example not every emoji can wear glasses, have red hair, or be presented as a child or older adult, even though individual options exist for most of these.
For specific self-representation, many platforms offer emoji-like avatars or stickers, which generally provide extensive customization options. See also What about characters whose names include WHITE or BLACK?
Q: What about diversity?
As with the examples of emoji characters representing food itemsabove, The Unicode Standard does not require a particular appearance forcharacters that depict people or body parts, such as U+1F474 OLDER MAN orU+270B RAISED HAND. In fact, UTS #51recommends that such depictions be as neutral or generic as possible withrespect to physical appearance, for example using non-realistic colors forskin tone, and a gender-neutral appearance for characters other thanthose listed in theGender sectionas having a gendered appearance.
However, many emoji users desire to use emoji for people and bodyparts that display a variety of more realistic skin tones. To support this,many such emoji may be followed by an emoji modifier character that canindicate one of 5 skin tones, based on theFitzpatrick scale.See Diversity.Furthermore,ZWJ sequencesmay be used to specify an explicitly gendered appearance for human-formcharacters that by themselves are recommended to have a gender-neutralappearance; see the list of sequences recommended for general interchange inemoji-zwj-sequences.txt.
Of course, there are many other types of diversity in humanappearance besides different skin tones, including different hair styles andcolor. It is beyond the scope of the Unicode Standard to provide an encoding-basedmechanism for representing every aspect of human appearance diversity thatemoji users might want to indicate. The best approach for communicating veryspecific human images—or any type of image in which preservation of specificappearance is very important—is the use of embedded graphics as described inWhat is the longer term plan for emoji?
See also What about characters whose names includeWHITE or BLACK?
Q. What are “gender-inclusive emoji”?
“Gender-inclusive” emoji, such as adult, are intended to functionas the gender equivalent of the neutral skin tone. Gender-inclusive emojirepresentations are not intended to represent only people with non-binarygender identity or presentation; rather they are meant to be truly inclusivein the sense that they are meant to be unmarked or ambiguous as to genderpresentation.
Q: How were emoji originally encoded in Unicode?
See the introduction in Unicode TechnicalStandard #51, Unicode Emoji.
Q: Do emoji have one and only one meaning?
No. Because emoji characters are treated as pictographs, theyare encoded in Unicode based primarily on their general appearance, not onan intended semantic. The meaning of each emoji can vary depending onlanguage, culture, context, and may change or be repurposed by various groupsover time.
For the curious, Emojipedia is a good source of information about thecurrent meanings of various emoji.
Q: Does the Unicode character name define themeaning of an emoji character?
The character name is a unique identifier, but may not encompass allthe possible meanings of an emoji character, and in some cases may even bemisleading. There are annotations in the Unicode Charts and in the Emoji Chartsthat help to define the intended meanings and usage.
Q: If an animal emoji name includes the word “FACE”,must the image show the face of the animal?
For some animals, there are two different emoji, one of which hasa name including “FACE”: for example, U+1F415 🐕 DOG and U+1F436 🐶 DOG FACE.In these cases, the use of “FACE” in the name is important for distinguishingthe two emoji; the emoji with “FACE” in the name should show the face of theanimal, and the other should show a different depiction, such as the full body.For other animals, there is only one emoji, whose name may or may not include“FACE”. In those cases, the use of “FACE” in the name is not significant, sothe emoji may show any desired depiction of the animal, for example using face,
Q: How many emoji characters are in Unicode now?
See Which Characters are Emoji in UTS #51.
Q. Which characters should an emoji font orkeyboard support?
Any font or keyboard whose goal is to support emoji shouldsupport the characters and sequences listed in the data files referenced byUTS #51.
Q: Will more emoji characters be added?
Unicode generally adds new emoji each year. The exact number andtimeframe varies, and more information about the process can be found here.
Q: Don’t emoji detract from the other work of the consortium?
Their encoding, surprisingly, has been a boon for language support. Emoji draw on Unicode mechanisms that are used by various languages, but which had been incompletely implemented on many platforms. Because of the demand for emoji, many implementations have upgraded their Unicode support substantially. That means that implementations now have far better support for the languages that use the more complicated Unicode mechanisms. See L2/18-044.
Q: Do emoji otherwise contribute to language support?
The Adopt-a-Character campaign, funding digitally disadvantaged languages and historic scripts/languages, has also benefited from the attention paid to emoji. For details about the campaign, see Adopt a Character and How to Apply for an Adopt-a-Character Grant.
Q: How should emoji be displayed?
While emoji symbols may be presented using color and animation(“emoji presentation”), they can also be presented as using a plain black &white “text presentation”. For guidelines on which characters should bedisplayed with an emoji presentation and how, seePresentationStyle inUTS #51.
Q: Why do certain characters appear as emoji on some platforms but not others? Is there a way I can control this?
Certain characters can be followed by a special character calleda variation selector to request a particular appearance: U+FE0F forthe emoji style (typically colored), and U+FE0E for the text style (black andwhite). For more information, seePresentationStyle in UTS #51.
Q: What about characters whose names include WHITEor BLACK?
Names of symbols such as BLACK MEDIUM SQUARE or WHITE MEDIUMSQUARE are not meant to indicate that the corresponding character must bepresented in black or white, respectively; rather, the use of “black” and“white” in the names is generally just to contrast filled versus outlineshapes, or a darker color fill versus a lighter color fill. Similarly, inother symbols such as the hands U+261A BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX andU+261C WHITE LEFT POINTING INDEX, the words “white” and “black” also refer
Q: What about other colors in the name?
Other colors in names, such as BLUE HEART or ORANGE BOOK, arethe recommended appearance when the characters are rendered in color. (Theblack and white images in the Unicode charts use various shading techniquesas a stand-in for color.)
Q: What is the difference between emoji and dingbats?
Most of the characters in the Dingbats block are derived from awell-established set of glyphs, the ITC Zapf Dingbats series 100, whichconstitutes the industry standard “Zapf Dingbat” font currently available inmost laser printers. Emoji and dingbats have some similarities (and a fewcharacters in the Dingbats block are treated as emoji). However, while thereis often a great deal of flexibility in the range of glyph shapes that may beused for presentation of emoji, most characters in the Dingbats block areexpected to be presented with glyph shapes that closely align with thoseshown in the Unicode Standard, when shown with a “text presentation”.
Q: Can you fix the Unicode image for a particular emoji?
Unicode provides guidance about new emoji designs, but has no specific control over the designs implemented by vendors. The images shown for any particular emoji release (for example, in emoji-released) are samples from various providers, and don’t necessarily reflect the final appearances on major platforms.
Keep in mind that emoji are often representative of an item or a broad class of items, and may not always render specific details.
Feedback for how an emoji displays on a specific platform (for example, iOS,Android, Windows) should be sent to the platform vendor (for example, Apple, Google,Microsoft) using the channels any other product feedback would be sent.
The Unicode Consortium does not dictate the exact appearance of emoji on any platform. More about emoji images and rights.
Q: But doesn’t the Unicode Consortium determine the design of the images?
No. The Unicode Consortium provides character code charts that show a representative glyph (in a black-and-white text presentation), but is not a designer or purveyor of emoji images, nor is it the owner of any of the color images used in Unicode emoji documents and charts, nor does it negotiate licenses for their use. Inquiries for permission to use vendor images should be directed to those vendors, not to the Unicode Consortium. See Emoji Images and Rights.
The Sample Colored Glyphs columns use a variety of different styles to illustrate some possible presentations. However, the actual presentations on phones and other devices are up to vendors, subject to the considerations in UTS #51: Unicode Emoji.
Q: I’d like my favorite emoji added to my phone.Can the Unicode Consortium add it?
The Unicode Consortium does not control which emoji aresupported on your phone, or what the emoji on your phone look like. Pleasesee: Once the Unicode Consortium encodes an emoji character, whenwill it appear on my phone?
Q: How can I get the Unicode Consortium to adda Unicode emoji?
To submit a proposal for an emoji, see Submitting Emoji Character Proposals. That page also describes the processand timeline. You should also look at the Emoji Submission FAQ.
Q: Why is the process so long and complicated?
Unicode is the foundation for all modern software: that’s how allmobile phones, desktops, and other computers represent all text of everylanguage. You are using Unicode every time you type a key on your phone ordesktop computer, and every time you look at a web page or text in anapplication.
It is thus very important that the standard be stable, and thatevery character that goes into it be scrutinized carefully.
Q: Once the Unicode Consortium encodes an emojicharacter, when will it appear on my phone?
As part of normal software release cycles, platform vendorsperiodically make decisions about which Unicode characters to support in newversions of their software. Supporting new emoji characters involves additionsto fonts, enhancements to emoji input methods (keyboards or palettes), andoften updates to libraries that determine character properties and behavior (such as word selection or line breaking). They are typically released in the year that Unicode finalizes them.
Q: Why can’t I find my national flag in my mobileapplication or on my smart phone?
For concerns about the emoji and flag symbols available in anyparticular application or mobile platform, please contact the manufacturer.Their software determines what characters are available on your device.
Q: But the Unicode Standard includes other flags,why don’t you include my flag?
The Unicode Standard encodes a set ofregionalindicator symbols. These can be used in pairs to represent anyterritory that has aUnicoderegion subtag as defined by CLDR,such as “DE” for Germany. The pairs are typically displayed as national flags:there are currently 257 such combinations. For more information, seeAnnex B:Valid Emoji Flag Sequences inUTS #51.UTS #51 also specifies a mechanism in which anemojitag sequence can be used to represent aunicode_subdivision_iddefined by CLDR for regions such as England, Scotland, and Wales; seeAnnex C:Valid Emoji Tag Sequences in UTS #51.
Q: What about other flags?
See Flags in Guidelines for Submitting Unicode® Emoji Proposals.
Q: What is the longer term plan for emoji?
The Unicode Consortium encourages the use of embedded graphics(a.k.a. “stickers”) as a longer-term solution, since they allow much morefreedom of expression. SeeLongerTerm Solutions inUTS #51.
Q. Are emoji a new language?
Emoji aren’t really a “language”; they don’thave the grammar or vocabulary to substitute for written language. But insocial media, people like to use them to add color and whimsy to their messages,and to help to make up for the lack of gestures, facial expressions, and toneof voice.
They also add a “useful ambiguity” to messages, allowingthe writer to convey many different possible concepts at the same time. Youcan probably view them more like borrowings of foreign words rather than alanguage by themselves.
Q: Are emoji universal?
No, emoji are not necessarily "universal". The imagesrepresented by emoji can have or develop very different overtones and usagedepending on a user's language and culture. People can use combinations thatrefer to specific words in their language, such as a bombshell moviein English:
People also use emoji for verbs or adjectives as well as nouns; whenthey do, they often follow the order used by their language. Some languagesput verbs at the end, for example; others put adjectives after nouns.
Q: If I include an emoji character in a document,will someone accessing it 100 years from now be able to read it properly?
Let's consider the broader question of any character, not just emoji. Consider the "@". That character was already commonly included on typewriters manufactured in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. It was used for prices on shop signs or advertisem*nts and for accounting: "tomatoes @ 12¢/lb" (tomatoes at 12 cents per pound) and so forth. Back in the 1960s, in the "ancient" history of computers, it was encoded in ASCII as the commercial at sign. Email had not really even been invented. This particular symbol got picked up for other uses, including marking identifiers in some programming languages. Today, the most common use is in email addresses: chris@example.com. That change in function could not have been anticipated, but such changes occur all the time for various symbols—including, of course, emoji symbols.
For the Unicode Consortium, the important thing about the stability of "@" is that in 1963 it was 0x40 COMMERCIAL AT in ASCII, and at present in the Unicode Standard it is U+0040 COMMERCIAL AT, as it will remain. Software still clearly identifies it as the same character today, some 50 years after its first use with computers. There is no reason to suppose that 50 years from now, U+0040 will not still be clearly interpretable in text data stores as the same thing, even if people invent additional uses for it.
Q: What keeps these characters stable?
When new characters are added to the Unicode Standard, they are added in a way that does not invalidate anything in the prior versions of the standard. This is called forward compatibility. Everyone developing any kind of computing system, from laptops to phones to some future quantum computing cyborg implant has very strong incentives to ensure that is the case. At this point, nearly 90% of all text data created and interchanged on the internet is already in Unicode (using the UTF-8 format: https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/en-utf8/all/all), and that percentage keeps growing. Even larger volumes of data are generated and maintained in servers and computers not directly visible on the internet. There are vast, growing quantities of such data. It would require a complete collapse of the information technology structure worldwide for all that stored information to suddenly become uninterpretable. The Unicode data is actually much more robust and stable than the particular hardware it might be stored on in any given decade.
Q: Where can I find out more? I have an emoji question not answered here.
Unicode provides a number of emoji resources which provides more information about emoji. In particular, Unicode Emoji TR #51 outlines many details of the entire emoji set.
For questions about new emoji proposals or why a certain emoji does not exist, please see the Emoji Submission FAQ.
Q: Can an emoji be removed?
Once an emoji code point has been added to the Unicode Standard, it cannot be removed per the Unicode Stability Policy. There have been limited instances where the emoji status of a character or sequence has changed over time, and some vendors may choose to only display a subset of the emoji Recommended for General Interchange.
As most emoji have multiple uses and meanings in various contexts, Unicode generally does not become involved in discussion of removing an emoji.
