Re: Turtle Graphics Emoji

Shriramana Sharma via Unicode:
>
> for animal in animalKingdom: createEmojiProposal(animal)
>
> Emoji are a veritable Pandora box.

It makes sense to look at where (animal) emojis came from and then decide how this might need to be expanded to avoid cultural bias etc.

A large bunch of the original animal emojis was meant for the Eastern (Chinese/Asian) and Western (European/Mediterranean) zodiac signs. There are several other astrological traditions that involve animals which have not yet been covered. My very superficial first research <https://github.com/Crissov/unicode-proposals/issues/388> (which largely ignores the three Southern-hemispheric continents of South America, Africa and Australia/Oceania) indicates that about a dozen animal emojis should be added for this reason alone:

- Crane
- Goose
- Hawk or Falcon (or generic Bird of Prey)
- Raven or Crow
- Seagull
- Swan
- Badger
- Beaver
- Otter
- Seal
- Seahorse

There are other culturally established sets of pictographic animals that might be used for systematic additions to Unicode, e.g. street signs. The existing Australian road signs <https://github.com/Crissov/unicode-proposals/issues/106>, for instance, would suggest 3 additional animal emojis:

- Kangaroo
- Ratite (Emu)
- Wombat

If we were to take a look at existing pictographic scripts, some of which have already been added to Unicode, we will see some other local favorites, e.g. in Egyptian hieroglyphs (U+130D2..131AC), also cf. L2/15-208 <http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15208-hieroglyphs-as-emoji.pdf>:

- Jackal
- Donkey
- Hippopotamus
- Panther
- Oryx, Gazelle, Ibex
- Vulture, Buzzard, Falcon
- Ibis, Flamingo, Stork, Heron, Cormorant
- Ostrich
- Swallow, Sparrow
- Goose, Pintail
- Catfish
- Dung Beetle
- ...

Alas, Mark Davis tells us in L2/17-206 <http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17206-emoji-and-vendors.pdf> that all that matters is expected popularity and an interest (and no veto) by a handful of US-based companies (or their representatives). Please note that popularity, of course, does not equal (neither global nor local) usage frequency, and the methods to assess the predictions are really shaky.
Received on Sat Jul 29 2017 - 16:30:12 CDT