For all the keyboard warriors out there, this one is for you.
The nonprofit organisation, Unicode Consortium, which nominates, proposes, standardises and rolls out emojis — now a staple of new pop culture, has recently released an update with its version 12.0 beta. With each release, the digital characters add further human context to the new global lexicon. So why is this important?
What had started as a mere footnote to text messages, is now quite possibly the first truly global language that allows its practitioners to express themselves through emotions and visual cues, without the barrier of language. Emojis are here to stay.
In its 12th edition, the trend towards greater inclusivity continues as the new-age lexicon extends to same-sex couples, women professionals, and more religious and cultural icons. It also offers a representation of people with disabilities (prosthetics, guide dog, wheelchairs), animals (otter, sloth, skunk), and foods (butter, falafel, oysters, onion).
India makes special inroads as various cultural icons such as the Hindu temple, saree, diyaas, and rickshaws make the cut. Ever since emojis have found a recurring place in our daily screen conversations, the icons have become a cultural bridge across language and divide. Language, after all, is more than just words.
The members of the Unicode Consortium curiously enough include a range of individual professionals, icon-aficionados, to companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Huawei. Although nominations can be sent in from the world over, a few such as the Hindu temple, were an outcome of public proposals.
This Unicode 12.0 version list is still not confirmed as the one that will hit your keyboards soon though. The list may further be appended. In case you have any nominations to make, feel free to drop the Unicode Consortium a line on their official email id — to help extend the language.
© 2018 Gut & Flow Media Pvt. Ltd., All Rights Reserved.
Kartik Rao
Writer
