[eldaisfish]

You've missed the point completely and have created a strawman-based rant.

The problem with emoji is that there is no dictionary, no standardised meaning or interpretation guidelines; no unified, context-dependent cues that everyone subconsciously agrees to. When you try to communicate non-verbal cues using them, it works well because there is a general understanding of what is meant though even there, cultural differences sometimes get in the way. Something like a smile cuts across cultures pretty universally.

When emoji start getting overused to the point where you have to draw meaning from the skin tones involved in a handshake, that's a step too far IMHO. This is precisely why we struggle with deciphering hieroglyphics and precisely why emoji must remain a supplement to language, not a replacement for it as many use.

[dTal]

Your objection on the grounds of lack of standardization applies to language as a whole. Dictionaries describe, not prescribe. It is our job to evolve a mutual understanding of what symbols mean and sort out any misunderstandings; it is Unicode's job to provide us with those symbols, whatever symbols we want. And to evolve that mutual understanding, we have to use the symbols. You might ask why bother, why not stick with the language we have? Well, you hear the same objection every time language evolves, and the answer is always the same - some people find the new way expressive and useful, is all.

By the way, we don't struggle with deciphering hieroglyphics - it's a phonetic alphabet, not a pictorial language.

[eldaisfish]

Your characterisation of what a dictionary does is misleading. Dictionaries in languages like English are a combination of prescriptive and descriptive. Change happens because humans are complex and evolving and language must evolve alongside. There remains a core of the language that is prescriptive.

That does not mean that people are free to redefine words as they choose and change their meanings entirely. That is how you get a dialect and then a different language.

With emoji, there is no shared understanding precisely because there are simply too many, often with no meaning and when meaning does exist, it is either vague or dependent on culture. This is absolutely not the case with written language.

[Timpy]

>That does not mean that people are free to redefine words as they choose and change their meanings entirely. That is how you get a dialect and then a different language.

There's nothing wrong with new dialects and new languages.

>With emoji, there is no shared understanding precisely because there are simply too many

A lot of people are already using emojis where everybody in the stream of communication shares understanding. Using an obscure emoji is possible just like using an obscure word is possible.

>often with no meaning and when meaning does exist, it is either vague or dependent on culture.

Using text for communication has the exact same feature. Words can be vague or can dependent on culture. Words can have two meanings. Words can be sarcastic or patronizing just like a thumbs up or smiling emoji can be.

By your reasoning, we should ask British people to stop using X's and O's at the end of their texts to indicate the tone of the message. And Japanese people should stop using ASCII emojis that border on artwork to indicate emotion.

[masklinn]

> You've missed the point completely and have created a strawman-based rant.

No. And two phrases don’t a rant make. You’ve written about 3 times as much in response.

> The problem with emoji is that there is no dictionary, no standardised meaning or interpretation guidelines; no unified, context-dependent cues that everyone subconsciously agrees to.

Have you never encountered slangs once in your life? Because not being understood by everyone is quite literally the point.

> When emoji start getting overused to the point where you have to draw meaning from the skin tones involved in a handshake, that's a step too far IMHO.

“Emoji are used a lot therefore emoji are bad” is certainly a take.

> This is precisely why we struggle with deciphering hieroglyphics and precisely why emoji must remain a supplement to language, not a replacement for it as many use.

You seem to understand hieroglyphics about as well as you understand emoji, or slang, or langage in general.

And we actually understand hieroglyphs really really well. Unlike, say, Linear A, or Etruscan (that one is rather interesting because the script is a known alphabet, but since we know nothing of the langage that’s not at all helpful, in the same way English and Romanian both using the Latin script… is not actually helpful to deciphering Romanian knowing only English).

[lukebitts]

You make it sound like interpreting emoji is nuclear physics. Most emoji have clear meanings, who is replacing language for emoji and what does that look like?

[eldaisfish]

In many ways, it is. Take the family emoji. What is that supposed to mean in a sentence? A floating businessman? How would you use that in a conversation? A single eye? A UK royal guard? A mermaid?

Are you able to define what exactly these mean and why we should devote time and effort to ensuring that each one has the correct skin tone and gender representation?

[lukebitts]

I am able to define what those mean, yes. A family means “family” and a mermaid means “mermaid”. Same answer for the rest, none of your emoji examples are complicated to interpret unless you add text to accompany them, and even then, at most you are going to misinterpret their tone, not the specific emoji.

Wether we should devote time making sure they are the correct skin tone is orthogonal to my original comment.

[Larrikin]

Maybe they all mean different things in different context and the language is evolving to incorporate such items.

Eggplant and the one hundred emoji have well known meanings now that I'm sure the creators were not thinking of when they were designed. I'm sure someone somewhere complained about having vegetables and numbers in the standard at the time though.