Amongst the languages spoken on our beautiful continent, UNESCO has listed 79 African languages as critically endangered, 66 severely endangered, 51 as definitely endangered and 44 are vulnerable. The nature of the issue crosses all four corners of Africa.

To the west, only four people who can speak Njerep remain and in the east, only six people in Ethiopia can speak Ongota. South Africa may be home to four of the most widely spoken languages in Africa, namely English, Afrikaans, Xhosa and Zulu, and boast the largest amount of official languages in the world, but we still have some of the saddest statistics when it comes to critically endangered languages.

Emoji sapping the life out of language

Perhaps there is something, though. In the Internet Age, speaking one of these languages means African countries can be more inclusive to information, education and trade online, creating a commonality that has allowed each of the 54 states to be inclusive of the global village. Beyond this, even these commonly held languages are beginning to feel the strain. Like ‘video killing the radio star’ and colonisation killing the oral tribe culture, mobile could quickly be fingered for killing the oral and written culture. Without sounding dramatic, Emoji, as a parasitic ‘language’, could be the culprit for the abuse and ultimate death of written language.

The emoji is creeping into each and every language written online today and this is largely due to the impact of mobile messaging. 

Emojitracker.com is a real-time tracker of emoji use on Twitter. If you don’t want an epileptic fit or have a weak stomach I don’t suggest visiting the site, however. The nauseating real-time statistic boards show that the Oxford word of the year had been used 1 074 015 124 times (at the time of writing). We may look at this and see a giant storm brewing, especially when Kim Kardashian West launched her Kimoji late in 2015. We may have more things to worry about than the difference between ‘there’, ‘their’, and ‘they’re’.

Understanding the beast

Despite the saddening prospect of languages dying, we shouldn’t get over ‘emojinal’ about the natural evolution of how we communicate. Because emoji are so ubiquitous, we may actually be experiencing a de-babel-isation of the world, making it easier to understand each other, despite our differences.

Linguistics of Emoji is beginning to emerge slowly but surely. Instagram’s Emojineering study shows the rise Emoji in everyday online language, but also managed to linguistically study the phenomenon, finding that emoji have synonyms, syntax and homonyms. The study started in 2011 when iOS included emoji into the iPhone keyboard and expanded the research to when Instagram was opened up to Android users and when the operating system updated its native keyboard with emoji in 2013. By April 2015, Instagram found that nearly 50% of all communication included emoji in posts and comments. Finland was found to use emoji the most, while Tanzanians use emoji the least, making up a mere 10% of all Instagram communication

Often I hear my Xhosa or Afrikaans friends having to tell a joke in their native language because certain words just lose their emotion when told in English. Of course, that is how emoji got its name, because of the emotional feel it gave in the gut in the same way. In attempts to try translate emoji into English, Instagram found that often emoji are not used in isolation and when used together, the visual representations give rise to a whole new meaning. In attempts to map out emoji with the closest meaning (synonyms), they found that vastly different and unassuming emoji may mean the same thing.

Emoji as a barometer for the state of society

Emoji and digital sticker creator, Swyft Media conducted their own research into the use of emoji in the world and found that six billion emoji are used every single day. That would almost be an emoji per person on earth. What emerged seemed to show cultural differences in the use of emoji and this got me thinking that the use of these visuals could tell us a story about the state of the world. While Oju may have beaten Apple in the race to create diversified emoji with the release of their Loerie Award winning Afro-emoji, iOS has been pivotal in showing the world how people think and the dominant ideologies that may be shifting or intensifying.

By looking at the Swyft results in conjunction with emoji tracker, it could show interesting shifts. Female emoji are more used than Male emoji, showing patriarchy may actually be falling. On a materialistic front money and clothing proves to be more used and, therefore, more important than pets or even food.

Real world consequences of Emoji

As the world starts to understand the use and meaning of emoji, especially in context and complex sentences, the real world consequences of using emoji are heating up. There is a definite psychology to using and interpreting emoji as Mark Kohler, Owen Churches and Myra Thiessen et al. tried to figure out in their study, Emoticons in mind: An event-related potential study.

Take Osiris Aristy who uploaded a photo of himself on Facebook smoking a crack pipe with the caption. New York cops were less concerned about the drugs being used and more concerned with the threat to kill policemen through the use of three guns to a policeman emoji. In a post- 9/11 world, the 17-year-old found himself being arrested on terror charges. In addition to the fact that emoji are easy to use, the fact that we hide behind our mobile screens, and that the world is still figuring out each character’s definition, makes emoji slightly dangerous, especially since emoji got racially diverse. They could easily end up as a form of racism, sexism, or homophobia.

With the rise of a new form of communication, it is refreshing to see how the marketing world is celebrating and embracing the evolution of language. Brands are embracing emoji in a huge way and it is extending beyond the digital canvas.

A personal favourite in this regard came to me when a red soft-drink came out with emoji on their cans. Besides the fun of using emoji, the rational for using them is clear, clever and in line with their core marketing purpose, to unite humanity. Personally, the move away from how emoji looked universally ended up looking like an advert for Kotex. Brands need to evolve with the times to stay relevant, but if they want to be power houses, they must take a deeper look at the language before entering the market.

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*Edited for length. Click here to read the full article.