I'm fascinated by people who think emoji could someday be a more universal way of communication given all of its inherent ambiguity. My off-the-top-of-my-head example was the prayer emoji, which has popularly been said to be a mistranslation of a purported "high five":
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865606309/This-emoji-may-...But as Emojipedia points out, the Unicode definition is "person with folded hands". As a Westerner, I'm inclined to associate this with "prayer". But since we have the Japanese to largely thank for emoji in the first place, shouldn't this emoji be seen as "please" or "thank you"?
http://emojipedia.org/person-with-folded-hands/
And if you look at that Emojipedia entry, you start to appreciate the cluaterfuck of things lost in translation. Not only is the gesture of folded hands of varied meanings across cultures, but each software vendor adds their own interpretation.
Compare Samsung's rendering:
http://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/f7/f4/f7f45466d6...
With HTCs: http://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/97/d6/97d6ea79e4...
Admittedly, emojis are more immediately expressive than, say, learning a whole other written language. But the amount of ambiguity and confusion ultimately remains the same IMO
But as Emojipedia points out, the Unicode definition is "person with folded hands". As a Westerner, I'm inclined to associate this with "prayer". But since we have the Japanese to largely thank for emoji in the first place, shouldn't this emoji be seen as "please" or "thank you"?
http://emojipedia.org/person-with-folded-hands/
And if you look at that Emojipedia entry, you start to appreciate the cluaterfuck of things lost in translation. Not only is the gesture of folded hands of varied meanings across cultures, but each software vendor adds their own interpretation.
Compare Samsung's rendering:
http://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/f7/f4/f7f45466d6...
With HTCs: http://emojipedia-us.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/97/d6/97d6ea79e4...
Admittedly, emojis are more immediately expressive than, say, learning a whole other written language. But the amount of ambiguity and confusion ultimately remains the same IMO