We are currently amidst the transition to global language, at least the written version. Forget languages like English, French, German, Spanish….. name it all — but there is already a global language that everyone (yourself inclusive) is writing. And brains globally can decipher it just as intended by the sender. Something seemingly childish is armored to entirely transform the written word: emojis.
You shouldn’t be hanged for under estimating the power of a bunch of yellow colored faces (read emojis). But before you belittle them, let’s remember that they were the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year in 2015. The Unicode Standard has already approved 2666 emojis with more to come through this year. They just can’t stop at the moment!
A revisit to the history of written language will help you understand more deeply why something so small and simple has taken the world like a storm to claim the throne of being the global language, and it will uncover why this claim isn’t all that outlandish.
Let’s go back to the time of the caves. Life was simple. Maybe. There were flowers everywhere. But that’s not why I’ve carried you from your couch to this far back in time. So let’s focus again. Our first attempts of written communication as homosapiens started with pictographs on cave walls. In Uganda, we clearly see this kind of written communication on rock paintings at Nyero. And these drawings on cave walls, rocks and pyramids are all over the world and date thousands of years back. They are the very first analogue emojis.
The tools we had on our disposal were only limited to caving walls, and earth pigments to paint. So written communication was visual, obvious and static. It had to be obvious to ensure meaning is portrayed as intended without a narrative to accompany it. But communication technology improved and written communication made a grand entrance to clay tablets and cuneiform scripts after a millennia of evolution.
Writing became simplified and further deviated from its pictorial roots. The alphabets took shape to spell out the spoken works. Anyone with average dexterity could draw this new simplified language.
The first global omni-language
Okay back to the present. It’s the digital era. Digital communications and tools have proliferated, making way for visual language to make a radical comeback. A much needed comeback. The increased use of short form communication and the zeal for expediency is taken us through the portal back to the world of interpretive pictographs. The technology is here now, and a single click of a button can be translated into an entire sentence or emotion. It is truly a wonderful iteration of the written form. I’m even wondering if we’ve subconsciously found a way to find a written form which can cross language barriers without realising it. An emergent phenomenon designed out of global necessity? Emojis have become the first global omni-language written version.
Emojis are super powered not just to translate, but also have a certain malleability and capability to create variety once bundled up. They can create sentence structures that jump high above the language barrier huddle effortlessly. They are also a great reminder of the roots of humanity, the days in the cave. They also remind us that the language itself is a technology. The advantage they have is a new type of immediate and mutual understanding which can cross borders. It’s this that makes the switch to an entirely new global form of writing entirely possible. While it might take generations, it isn’t without precedent.
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