Post by @tschfflr@fediscience.org

2026-07-17 15:44 UTC

Two other writing systems are often compared to #emojis: #Chinese characters and #hieroglyphs. @Kuchenschwarte@fnordon.de I'm not really an expert on either, but I did study Chinese in university and recently had a long conversation with an Egyptologist colleague (who gave me the 101 on hieroglyphs 😄 ). Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was an alphabet (ie, each character roughly corresponds to a sound like p, t, k). So while the hieroglyphs resemble objects, they were not read as such, at least not in the later stages. (Btw. Latin characters also developed from picture-like objects in many cases, but it's been a long time since these pictures were recognizable) Thus, emojis do not resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs in my view - each emoji corresponds most closely to a word or concept, not a single letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs #emojis #linguistics #WorldEmojiDay

Replies (3)

@tschfflr@fediscience.org 2026-07-17 15:51

@Kuchenschwarte@fnordon.de "Why are emojis standardly not animated?" - a complicated question. The Unicode standard lists a code point for each emoji (and other symbols, too), as well as, roughly, its meaning (really a short name). You can see the full list below. E.g., codepoint "U+1F601" corresponds to "beaming face with smiling eyes" or 😁 . You can think of the look of that emoji on your individual platform as a kind of "font" - the platforms are free to implement the look of each emoji according to their house style. This is similar to the character "A" looking different in different newspapers, platforms, or styles. In most Western platforms emojis so far are not animated. But in many widely used Chinese platforms (WeChat and especially Weibo, for example), many emojis are animated. So I guess it's a question of style. #emojis #linguistics #WorldEmojiDay https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html

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@MarcSchulder@fediscience.org 2026-07-17 18:08

@tschfflr@fediscience.org Speaking of writing systems and emoji, based on how sign language users would sketch when taking notes for a signed presentation or planning their own, Michael Filhol proposed a notation for sign utterances that focuses on semantics rather than phonology. It involves the use of emoji-like elements for semantic concepts that can then be slotted into relational structures, (all of which can then be converted into an established formalism for Avatar-based outputs, too). Source: https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/24016.html

Open ##5175579
@v_i_o_l_a@openbiblio.social 2026-07-17 20:01

@tschfflr@fediscience.org @Kuchenschwarte@fnordon.de yes, there are no "picture writing systems": hieroglyphs and also chinese and japanese characters are all symbols for sounds, not for words or concepts. happy memories of the days when i was working on writing systems typology for my master's thesis in 2003 ... :)

Open ##5175582