Lookup, Convert, and Tweet with Emoji!

1. The Best Things About Emoji The famous novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville has recently seen a translation activity fronted by Fred Benenson aiming to produce Emoji, the world's first (and perhaps last!) novel written in emoji. What is emoji? First a definition; emoji is not a language, it is the Japanese for picture characters, or in English, icons, sometimes animated, sometimes static. They have been standard on Japanese phones for many a year, then recently support has been introduced in Google Gmail and the Apple iPhone, although Apple have tried to suppress support for emoji in non-Japanese iPhones. One might think that there is a relationship between emoji and hieroglyphics, but as far as I understand hieroglyphics do codify a language and feature grammar elements, key features missing from Japanese emoji icons. How is it being translated? Emoji is using Amazon's Mechanical Turk to muster multiple translators; each sentence will be translated into emoji three times, with the best version chosen from these three efforts. How will it be published? The output will be available in both electronic form and as the very first printed emoji book. It will be printed on demand effort, so don't go looking for Emoji in a bookshop. However, if it is a success, who knows, one might very well see Emoji on sale in a bricks and mortar shop.

2. But is it readable? In a word, no! One cannot read Emoji, although it should be printed with Japanese emoji and English translations interleaved. Think of it as a manga graphic novel, which will need the English translation of emoji beside it as speech bubbles. Emoji is a small digital image, used instead of expressing feelings through a word sign in online communication. To know more about emoji symbols and short cuts click here:- www.GoEmoji.com