絵文字
えもじ
emoji
= pictograph character; the small digital icons used in electronic communication — originally a Japanese invention for mobile phone text messaging
Emoji (絵文字) are the pictographic characters that have become a universal language of digital communication — but they were invented in Japan in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita for NTT DoCoMo mobile phones, and their Japanese origin shapes what they originally meant.
Emoji is a Japanese word meaning ‘picture character’ (絵 e, picture + 文字 moji, character/letter). The original 176 NTT DoCoMo emoji created by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999 were 12×12 pixel icons designed for Japan’s i-mode mobile internet service. When Apple included emoji in iOS 5 in 2011, they spread globally. Today there are over 3,600 Unicode emoji. The original set was heavily Japan-specific: it included 🍱 (bento), 🎌 (Japanese flags), 🗼 (Tokyo Tower), 🏮 (red lantern), and 💮 (white flower used on Japanese school papers to indicate a perfect score).
The Japanese pronunciation is E-MO-JI (3 syllables, え・も・じ), not ‘ee-moh-jee’ as often said in English. Some emoji have different connotations in Japan versus globally: 🙏 (folded hands) is commonly read as ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ in Japan (praying hands/bowing), while in Western contexts it’s often read as prayer. 💢 (anger symbol) is a Japanese manga convention for anger; 💦 (sweat drops) comes from manga sweat symbols indicating nervousness. Understanding these manga-origin emoji requires knowing Japanese visual conventions.
絵文字 combines 絵 (e, picture/painting/drawing) and 文字 (moji, character/letter/written symbol). 絵 appears in 絵本 (ehon, picture book) and 絵描き (ekaki, painter/artist). 文字 is the standard word for written characters. The combination is straightforward: picture + character = pictographic symbol. Distinguish from 顔文字 (kaomoji, face characters) — the ASCII-art emoticons like (^_^) and (T_T) that preceded emoji in Japanese online culture.
EXAMPLE 1
絵文字を発明した栗田穣崇氏は、最初の176個を2×2センチのスペースに収めるよう設計した。
Emoji wo hatsumei shita Kurita Shigetaka-shi wa, saisho no hyaku-nanajuu-roku-ko wo ni-kake-ni-senchimetoru no supeesu ni osameru you ni sekkei shita.
Shigetaka Kurita, who invented emoji, designed the original 176 to fit within a 2×2 centimeter space.
EXAMPLE 2
日本では「顔文字」と「絵文字」は別物で、(^_^)は顔文字、😊は絵文字と呼ばれる。
Nihon de wa ‘kaomoji’ to ‘emoji’ wa betsumono de, (^_^) wa kaomoji, 😊 wa emoji to yobareru.
In Japan, ‘kaomoji’ and ‘emoji’ are different — (^_^) is a kaomoji (face character), while 😊 is an emoji.
EXAMPLE 3
海外で広まった🙏の絵文字は、日本では「お願い」や「ありがとう」の意味で使われることが多い。
Kaigai de hiromatta 🙏 no emoji wa, Nihon de wa ‘onegai’ ya ‘arigatou’ no imi de tsukawareru koto ga ooi.
The 🙏 emoji that spread globally is often used in Japan to mean ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ — a bowing gesture.
Emoji were born out of Japan’s visual communication culture, which had developed a rich vocabulary of pictographic shorthand long before digital media. Japanese manga and comics use standardized visual symbols that readers decode without explanation: 💢 for anger, 💦 for nervous sweat, 💤 for sleep, ❗ for sudden realization. These conventions migrated directly into the original emoji set because Kurita drew from the visual grammar of manga, weather maps, and traffic signs rather than from text. When emoji went global, international users adopted the images but sometimes lost or altered the original meanings.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired Kurita’s original 176 emoji as part of its permanent collection in 2016, recognizing them as significant design objects. In Japan, emoji culture intersects with a longer tradition of 顔文字 (kaomoji, face characters) — elaborate ASCII emoticons like ╰(*°▽°*)╯ or (T_T) that Japanese users were creating in the 1980s on early bulletin board systems. Emoji displaced kaomoji in mainstream messaging but kaomoji remain popular in certain online communities for their expressiveness.
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