Re: Thoughts on working with the Emoji Subcommittee (was Re: Thoughts on Emoji Selection Process)

Leo Broukhis responded to William Overington:

I decided that trying to design emoji for 'I' and for 'You' seemed
interesting so I decided to have a go at designing some.

Why don't we just encode Blissymbolics, where pronouns are already
expressible as abstract symbols, and emojify them?

Emoji enthusiasts seeking to devise a universal pictographic set might
be well-advised to build from existing work such as Blissymbolics.

I think William Overington's designs are clever, though.  Anyone who
has ever studied a foreign language (or even their own language) would
easily and quickly recognize the intended meanings of the symbols once
they understand the derivation.

What about languages that don't have or don't use personal pronouns. Their speakers might find their use odd or awkward.

The same for many other grammatical concepts: they work reasonably well if used by someone from a related language, or for linguists trained in general concepts, but languages differ so much in what they express explicitly that if any native speaker transcribes the features that are exposed (and not implied) in their native language it may not be what a reader used to a different language is expecting to see.

A./