Because there are many common words with no obvious emoji representation, the Emojese emoji language project resorts to a number of strategies to produce understandable and memorable emoji sequences.
- Consider the full range of Unicode, not just emoji characters. The Compart Unicode search tool is excellent for this purpose, as is the Shapecatcher tool that lets you search by drawing a symbol.
- Make judicious use of mathematical symbols and arrows. See below.
- Big, obvious distinctions are better than small, subtle ones. When sent in a messaging application, emojis can appear very small, making fine details hard to discern.
- Choose emoji which, if not obvious, are at least recognizable, memorable, and sensible in retrospect. Few people would type 🐛🦋 for “become” on their own, but hopefully in retrospect the choice of those emoji makes sense.
- The more common an idea is, ideally the shorter its emoji expression should be.
- Avoid using a single emoji like 🐌 Snail on its own to mean something more specific, like "slow", because that would remove the noun "snail" from the language. The Emojese for "slow" is "🐌~", which adds "~" ("-ish") to create an adjective.
- Exception to the above rule: single emoji for obscure words, like ⚗️ Alembic, are up for grabs.
- In general, search for a 2–3 emoji sequence to represent a common word.
- Be aware that emoji representations vary from platform to platform, which can occasionally present real challenges. For example, the contrast in 🏕️⛺ ("near") works well in iOS and other platforms, but poorly in Microsoft Windows.
- Avoid using text to convey meaning. Avoid emoji with words like 🆓, with the exception of 🆗 ("ok" is nearly universally understood). Text for proper nouns is fine.
- Similarly, avoid letters to imply English words for those letters. 🄰 is used for "letter", not for words that start with "a". Exceptions: ℹ️ is used for "information" because that is an internationally recognized symbol. Similarly, 🚗Ⓟ is used for "park" because many international parking signs include a "P" in a circle.
- Avoid characters from other languages such as Chinese or Japanese that would only make sense to speakers of those languages. It's fine to define a character like ⼚ (Kangxi Radical Cliff) to mean "edge", since anyone could infer that meaning from the character's appearance.
- Unless gender or skin tone is an important aspect of the word, use the genderless people emoji like 🧑 rather than gendered alternatives. Messages about specific people can use more specific genders.
- Likewise, generally use the default yellow skin tone.
- Be family-friendly.
- Emojipedia is a reasonably definitive emoji reference.
Emojis tend to be things, which leads to interpreting them as nouns. These indicators can emphasize that a different part of speech is intended. Such an indicator may not always be required.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ~ | adjective ("-ish") |
| ❦ | adverb ("-style") |
| ⟿ | verb |
Emojese tries to identify certain emoji as representative of a broader concept, then use this in combination with other emojis to create new words. These are used like radicals in Chinese and Japanese characters; they contribute a semantic meaning to the sequence.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ∀ | all |
| ∃ | any, some, exists |
| ⛶ | area |
| 🧍 | body (physical) |
| ⌊ | bottom |
| 🎨 | color |
| 〰️ | continuation |
| ☀️ | day, day of week |
| ☠️ | death |
| ↕ | degree, amount |
| 💦 | difficult, effort |
| 🧭 | direction |
| ♾️ | forever |
| 🔮 | future |
| ↤ | get |
| ↦ | give |
| 🏛️ | government, politics |
| ⟨ ⟩ | group |
| ⛳ | ground |
| 🖐 | hand, touching |
| ⌈ | high |
| 🌐 | internet |
| 🎓 | knowledge |
| ⇊ | less |
| ⌊ | low |
| ⚙️ | machine, device |
| 🔨 | make |
| 💍 | marriage |
| 💭 | mental activity |
| 🥩 | meat (combine with animal for type) |
| 🎖️ | military |
| 💵 | money |
| 🌙 | month |
| ⇈ | more |
| ⏭️ | next |
| 🚫 | not, negate |
| # | number |
| 🧩 | part |
| 👥 | people (multiple) |
| 👤 | person (abstract concept), the head |
| 🧑 | person (combining form for occupation/role without a specific emoji) |
| 📍 | place |
| ⏮️ | previous |
| 🎲 | random |
| 🔗 | related, linked, connection |
| 🛐 | religion |
| ◱ | room |
| 🗣 | say, talk |
| 👀 | see, look |
| ⌼ | shape, form |
| 🤏 | small |
| 🧪 | substance |
| ∯ | surface |
| 👈 | that |
| ⬚ | thing |
| 👉 | this |
| ⏰ | time |
| ⌈ | top |
| ↹ | transaction |
| ✅ | true, correct |
| || | way, path |
| __ | what |
| 💬 | words |
| 🧰 | work |
| 🌍 | world |
These generally use Unicode symbols that suggest a position or relationship.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ◓ | above, over |
| ⤼ | across |
| →← | against |
| ⥁ | around |
| ◑ | after |
| @ | at |
| ◐ | back, behind |
| ◒ | below, under |
| ⧲ | between |
| ⩕ | by |
| ⬇️ | down |
| ↫ | from |
| ◑ | front |
| 📥 | in |
| ⚆ | inside |
| ⇲ | into |
| ↥ | off |
| ⊻ | on |
| 📤 | out |
| ⧂ | outside |
| ◓ | over |
| ⤃ | through |
| ↬ | to, for |
| ⬆️ | up |
| 🧑🤝🧑 | with |
Although arrows are effective at communicating action and there are many Unicode arrows, they can be hard to tell apart and a row of different arrows is very hard to visually read. Emojese tries to avoid using too many different types of slightly different arrows; something about the arrow itself (direction, count, line quality, start/end decoration) should suggest the meaning.
Generally speaking, action toward the speaker is to the left; action away from the speaker is to the right.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ⟲ | again |
| ⇤ | but |
| ← | come |
| ⟿ | do |
| ⇆ | exchange |
| ↬ | for |
| ↫ | from |
| ⤻ | (future tense) |
| ↤ | get |
| ↦ | give |
| → | go |
| ⇲ | into |
| ⤓ | least |
| ↰ | left |
| ⇊ | less |
| ⤭ | mix |
| ⇈ | more |
| ⤒ | most |
| or | |
| ⤺ | (past tense) |
| ↩ | return |
| ↱ | right |
| ⇥ | so |
| ⇒ | then |
| ⍆ | through |
In cases where there are two emoji that have some interesting juxtaposition, Emojese may use a Mandarin-style resultative complement. This contrasts two ideas and focuses on the second to imply a change, difference, or result:
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🐛→🦋 | become, change |
| ⛺→🏕️ | far |
| 🏕️→⛺ | near |
| 🛌→🛏 | wake |
Categories appear in brackets.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| [🖼️] | art |
| [🐈🐕] | pet |
| [⚽] | sports |
Emoji such as animals can be used for their metaphoric or symbolic value, often in combination with the "~" (-ish) adjective indicator.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🐘~ | big |
| 🐝~ | busy |
| 🦥~ | lazy |
| 🪶~ | light |
| 🐿️⟿ | prepare |
Emojese adopts the hiragana の (“no”) as a possessive, one of its uses in Japanese.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
🏁の |
last |
🌐の |
online |
In a few cases, math, science, and music may have a notation with an existing meaning that can play a useful role in an Emojese word. The meaning may only be known to people with prior knowledge of that field, so this technique is used sparingly. That said, since some concepts are fundamentally abstract, any emoji representation might be challenging to understand; it seems preferable to at least adopt an existing notation for such a concept.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ∀ | all |
| ∃ | any, some, exists |
| ∵ | because |
| ⌈ | ceiling, high |
| ⌊ | floor, low |
| ⟨ ⟩ | group |
| ∯ | surface |
| ⇒ | then |
In addition to emoji, Unicode contains some 140,000 other characters. Unlike the notation strategy above, here the original meaning of a character is often ignored, using it for its pictorial value as a kind of emoji.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ◡ | bottom |
| ⏀ | center |
| ⌥ | choose |
| 〰️ | continue |
| ⟓ | corner |
| ⌒ | curve |
| ⍐ | enough |
| 𐄪 | grid |
| ⟢ | happen |
| ⚆ | inside |
| ⎋ | leave |
| ⧂ | outside |
| ◔ | part |
| ▥ | pattern |
| ᠁ | (plural) |
| ◌○ | real |
| ▦ | screen |
| 🝆 | several |
| ⧛⧚ | shake |
| ⎄ | shape |
| ⟥ | side |
| ⎈ | steer |
| ⌼ | too |
| ◠ | top |
| ➿ | turn |
This is something of a last-resort strategy, as it tends to require multiple characters to get a simple point across.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ⇥⇤ | narrow |
| ┳┳ | table |
This strategy is also rarely employed as it requires substantial mental work to understand. "Math" operations like ➕ and ➖ can be used to indicate that one concept should be added to, or subtracted from, another.
| Emojese | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 🍴➖🔪 | fork |
| 🍽➖🍴 | plate |