Emoji (絵文字) is the Japanese term for the picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese electronic messages and webpages.
Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e “picture” + moji “letter”.
The characters are used much like emoticons elsewhere, but a wider range is provided, and the icons are standardized and built into the handsets. Some emoji are very specific to Japanese culture, such as a bowing (apologizing) businessman, a face wearing a face mask or a group of emoji representing popular foods (ramen noodles, dango, onigiri, Japanese curry, sushi).
The three main Japanese operators, NTT DoCoMo, au and SoftBank Mobile (formerly Vodafone), have each defined their own variants of emoji.
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essays and ideas from Eliza Sarobhasa