Texting or instant messaging is something most of us do everyday. Written, or typed, word isn’t something new, as people have been writing things down for centuries, but there is something new that we use: emojis.
But are emojis actually new, or are they just a new adaptation of a style of written language that people have used before?
When thinking about pictographic writing systems, the one most prevalent and most likely heard of are the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. These various symbols make up the writing system. When we look at them today, they make little sense. For example, why does a foot or an arm often get translated to the letter B?
It’s not something the average person might ever understand, as we lack the context that someone in Ancient Egypt would’ve had.
The same could be said for how we use emojis today. They can be used to “write” whole sentences, and since we have the context of what they mean or visually depict, and while it might take a second, you can still figure out what the eye emoji, the person running emojis, and the clock emoji might mean when all put together.
While emojis can and are used to make whole sentences, they are also used to show the reader something extra. Emojis are used to convey emotion more quickly than text can.
“Emojis often serve as emotional shorthand — think smiley blowing a heart kiss to soften a message or send love, or a winking face to signal sarcasm — filling an expressive void that text messages may fail to convey,” said in the New York Times article “Emojis Meet Hieroglyphs: If King Tut Could Text.”
Adopting this older writing style allows us to text and message each other more quickly and with more clarity than text alone provides. Like many things, the modern take on hieroglyphs looks very different than they did in 3200 B.C.
The first painted image of a person looks very different from the pictures we can take of ourselves now. Things had to be essential for a long time for it to be written down; compare that to your last text message.
Now, we message each other with ease, we can add an eye roll emoji or a laughing emoji to show emotional context. While what these images are meant to convey has changed to be adapted to the modern day, these modernized hieroglyphics are still being used to communicate. Wanting to be as quick and effective as we can in our messages has brought us back to pictographic writing.
What better way to show emotions than to have a little image of it? As our needs change, how we use things changes. This led us to adopt an old form of writing, turning hieroglyphics into emojis.
Today, the smiley face emoji is as common in communication as the image of a vulture in Egyptian hieroglyphs.