7 ms·

East Asian character emojis – “the fuller” story

71 points by jmadsen 10y ago

kalleboo 10y ago
This article seems to completely miss the reason these were created as emoji - they were encoded for use on the Japanese mobile web so that phones wouldn't have to keep downloading images for "this train has free seats","loading this site is free of data charges" and "apply for this event" etc. They weren't meant for private use but for commercial use.
- GolDDranks 10y ago
  I got the impression that the han symbols introduced here were originally NOT in the emoji charsets ("NTT DoCoMo Pictographs" etc.), but come from the "Japanese TV Symbols (ARIB)" charset. That means that they aren't originally used in mobile phones, but in TV receivers. (Digital programming guide, subtitles etc.) They were only included in the emoji range later, when they became a part of Unicode.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    I know the symbols were present on the mobile web, but I could be mistaken about them actually being encoded as Emoji. I have a couple ancient gala-kei lying around, I'll see if I can find one of the proprietary chargers and fire one up tomorrow to research. A quick google reveals this docomo<>au translation chart from 2008 with 空 and 満 http://kiironinaritai.com/store/emoji/emoji_docomo_au.gif http://kiironinaritai.com/store/emoji/emoji_docomo_au.gif And this page also from 2008 with a SoftBank table with 有, 無, 特, 割, ココ, サ etc http://m-pe.tv/u/page.php?uid=emoji0427&id=2 http://m-pe.tv/u/page.php?uid=emoji0427&id=2 edit: the fact that 満,空 and 指 are right next to the "seat" emoji in the softbank private encoding reinforces what I remembered about them being used for mobile booking sites
    - GolDDranks 10y ago
      Okay, maybe I was wrong then about those being from ARIB. I used to use an old gara-kei too not further than a few years ago (I think it was 2012), and indeed, there were some han emojis on mobile too.
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        Everything is further muddied by the fact that the three operators all had incompatible emoji sets, all squirreled away in unused parts of Shift-JIS. IIRC, first docomo launched emoji, then someone else came out with "look we have animated emoji!", then the next company had to launch multicolor emoji, "oh but now OUR new model has an extra 150 emoji!" I'm sure some of the ones that ended up in Unicode came from ARIB, but others were cobbled together from the operator sets.
        masklinn 10y ago
        > the three operators all had incompatible emoji sets, all squirreled away in unused parts of Shift-JIS It was even worse than that originally: NTT DoCoMo used private-use ranges in both Unicode and SHIFT-JIS, au used embedded IMG tags in arbitrary text content and SoftBank bracketed emoji codes in SI/SO escapes.
GolDDranks 10y ago
Having dabbled with the ARIB subtitling and data submission formats a bit myself, I can't help but think, who thought that it'd be a good idea to embed those symbols to the character encoding? Surely there's a room for a higher-level structured language that has tags, escape codes or some other markup, and allows for extensibility and ease of use. Keep the concerns separate!
- kalleboo 10y ago
  In the Japanese TV broadcast standard, subtitles can embed bitmap versions of kanji (generally only used for rare names or icons like "phone ringing"), but due to bandwidth and TV hardware cost limitations they're very low-res, whereas the encoded characters can be replaced by the TV with built-in high-res fonts. Perhaps a protocol designed in 2016 would use vectors instead. IIRC DVDs use 2-bit bitmap overlays, which is why DVD ripping software has to use OCR to get softsubs.
  - gizmo686 10y ago
    That still doesn't answer why these particular characters needed their own character. For instance, 🈯 U+1F22F [0] is really just a stylized version of 指 U+6307 [1] [2]. On a likely related note, the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement [3] seems simmilarly redundent, being composed of characters such as 🈯 which, again, should be a modification of of the basic 指 character. It is not like Unicode does not support modifying characters. EDIT: not "likely related" the emoji character described in the article is just 🈯. This character is called called "Squared Cjk Unified Ideograph-6307". [0] http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#1f22f http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#1f22f [1] https://unicode-table.com/en/6307/ https://unicode-table.com/en/6307/ [2] Insert rant about Han unification [3] https://unicode-table.com/en/blocks/enclosed-ideographic-supplement/ https://unicode-table.com/en/blocks/enclosed-ideographic-sup...
    - cooper12 10y ago
      My guess would be because of semantics. The plain version is the character itself used in text. The squared version is a specific symbol used in television for "designated hitter". It's the same reason that there are unicode characters that looks exactly like latin characters, except they're in different unicode blocks. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph#Unicode_homoglyphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph#Unicode_homoglyphs)
sho_hn 10y ago
At least in Korea, people don't really use inline emoji characters much - but they use stickers (larger, often animated cartoon images of characters in a variety of emotional stances or life situations, some with associated personalities or relationships with each other) a whole ton. They serve a variety of purposes, e.g. responding with a summary of what the other person said to signal understanding/empathy/compassion, teasing, flirting ... there's a lot of joy in maintaining and using a sticker collection actually, picking the right sticker for an occasion is a unique form of eloquence to collectively revel in. It's a big celebration of reading a room, wit and quick thinking, just using images. It's some of the most joyful creative writing around, I think. People also wind up adopting certain characters as "theirs" in a group chat, so it adds to identity.
- joveian 10y ago
  After I played my first JRPG, I notice every time a game tries to be at all role playing without showing character emotion images next to dialog. I would never have imagined it adding so much had someone just described it. What you describe sounds like the same thing in a different context.
trans1iterati 10y ago
It would be really cool to have anglicized transliterations of these, as a standardized expression notation, with tool-tip call-outs. The reason I say this, is because I have no idea what "🈯️" is, if it appears within a body of text, in isolation. Something like: !:symbolic-character-name: or: [symbol]character-name[/symbol] Think about the boundaries in communication something like that might smash. (...or inadvertently create, I hope not!)
- rch 10y ago
  Sounds like a good browser extension to me. I'd also like to have filters and conversions to preserve reasonable ideographs (e.g. ㊗), but optionally swap in a plain-text equivalent when warranted.
masklinn 10y ago
It's a bit odd (and sad) that the "Where is the Dumpling Emoji" project — or the corresponding section of TFA — makes no reference whatsoever to the previous Unicode Power Symbol project[0] which was also a grassroot effort to get "missing" emoji into the standard (in that case the IEC Power Symbols ⏻ ⏼ ⏽ and ⏾ with the "Power Off" symbol reusing the pre-existing ⭘ "HEAVY CIRCLE" codepoint), although it was obviously more reduced in scope and lifespan. [0] http://unicodepowersymbol.com http://unicodepowersymbol.com
angry-hacker 10y ago
Someone who is white and living in Eastern Europe I find comments like these deeply offensive: > overwhelmingly male, overwhelming white and overwhelmingly engineers This is me, but why does every article picture me as someone who has power and decision maker. Do I have to feel bad that I am male, white and engineer? I have seen hunger, REAL povery, communism, I make less than your McDonalds worker in U.S now and my standard of living is low compared to developed world. Why do I have to always read something is wrong with me?
- s_kilk 10y ago
  It's just good old-fashioned prejudice. Because you have attributes X, Y, and Z, you must therefore be a bad person.
- sho_hn 10y ago
  I don't think your frustration is warranted in this context, and context matters. The statement (a quote used by the article) was making a claim as to the staff involved with the expansion of Unicode being too homogeneous. If true, this could realistically pose a problem. I have some first-hand experience with this: I'm male, white and an engineer as well, but I'm also an immigrant in an East Asian country. Doing so and acquiring local cultural competency involved learning many things that weren't readily available to be learned in my European country of origin. It's therefore very credible to me that to serve a global audience, Unicode would benefit from a diverse staff trained in diverse environments due the way skills and knowledge are distributed. In other words, no, there isn't anything wrong with being male, white and an engineer (and nothing in the text says so, btw), but there might be (or have been; the article describes a shake-up in the process thereafter) a problem with decision makers at Unicode overwhelmingly fitting those specs. I think you can easily make the argument for diverse representation in this use case. This would of course benefit from the viewpoint of someone more familiar with the makeup of the Unicode Consortium.
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    It is just that every third article I read here on HN tells me so. I guess it's not frustration over only this particular article. But if people talk about diversity and tolerance, they should remind themselves that not all white people have the same privilege as you do over there. Where I live(d) I wasn't (and still don't) have an opportunity to open a developer account to so I can submit my (free) app to the store. I wasn't able to publish my app. I had to travel and go through horror making a bank account in another country just so I could submit an app to app store. I haven't had any influence over other people or groups, neither did my grand grand grand parents. I'm sick and tired reading from half of the tech (!!!!) article that all white men have some magical privilege.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

71 points by jmadsen 10y ago

This article seems to completely miss the reason these were created as emoji - they were encoded for use on the Japanese mobile web so that phones wouldn't have to keep downloading images for "this train has free seats","loading this site is free of data charges" and "apply for this event" etc. They weren't meant for private use but for commercial use.

GolDDranks 10y ago
I got the impression that the han symbols introduced here were originally NOT in the emoji charsets ("NTT DoCoMo Pictographs" etc.), but come from the "Japanese TV Symbols (ARIB)" charset. That means that they aren't originally used in mobile phones, but in TV receivers. (Digital programming guide, subtitles etc.) They were only included in the emoji range later, when they became a part of Unicode.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  I know the symbols were present on the mobile web, but I could be mistaken about them actually being encoded as Emoji. I have a couple ancient gala-kei lying around, I'll see if I can find one of the proprietary chargers and fire one up tomorrow to research. A quick google reveals this docomo<>au translation chart from 2008 with 空 and 満 http://kiironinaritai.com/store/emoji/emoji_docomo_au.gif http://kiironinaritai.com/store/emoji/emoji_docomo_au.gif And this page also from 2008 with a SoftBank table with 有, 無, 特, 割, ココ, サ etc http://m-pe.tv/u/page.php?uid=emoji0427&id=2 http://m-pe.tv/u/page.php?uid=emoji0427&id=2 edit: the fact that 満,空 and 指 are right next to the "seat" emoji in the softbank private encoding reinforces what I remembered about them being used for mobile booking sites
  - GolDDranks 10y ago
    Okay, maybe I was wrong then about those being from ARIB. I used to use an old gara-kei too not further than a few years ago (I think it was 2012), and indeed, there were some han emojis on mobile too.
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      Everything is further muddied by the fact that the three operators all had incompatible emoji sets, all squirreled away in unused parts of Shift-JIS. IIRC, first docomo launched emoji, then someone else came out with "look we have animated emoji!", then the next company had to launch multicolor emoji, "oh but now OUR new model has an extra 150 emoji!" I'm sure some of the ones that ended up in Unicode came from ARIB, but others were cobbled together from the operator sets.
      - masklinn 10y ago
        > the three operators all had incompatible emoji sets, all squirreled away in unused parts of Shift-JIS It was even worse than that originally: NTT DoCoMo used private-use ranges in both Unicode and SHIFT-JIS, au used embedded IMG tags in arbitrary text content and SoftBank bracketed emoji codes in SI/SO escapes.

GolDDranks 10y ago

Having dabbled with the ARIB subtitling and data submission formats a bit myself, I can't help but think, who thought that it'd be a good idea to embed those symbols to the character encoding? Surely there's a room for a higher-level structured language that has tags, escape codes or some other markup, and allows for extensibility and ease of use. Keep the concerns separate!

kalleboo 10y ago
In the Japanese TV broadcast standard, subtitles can embed bitmap versions of kanji (generally only used for rare names or icons like "phone ringing"), but due to bandwidth and TV hardware cost limitations they're very low-res, whereas the encoded characters can be replaced by the TV with built-in high-res fonts. Perhaps a protocol designed in 2016 would use vectors instead. IIRC DVDs use 2-bit bitmap overlays, which is why DVD ripping software has to use OCR to get softsubs.
- gizmo686 10y ago
  That still doesn't answer why these particular characters needed their own character. For instance, 🈯 U+1F22F [0] is really just a stylized version of 指 U+6307 [1] [2]. On a likely related note, the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement [3] seems simmilarly redundent, being composed of characters such as 🈯 which, again, should be a modification of of the basic 指 character. It is not like Unicode does not support modifying characters. EDIT: not "likely related" the emoji character described in the article is just 🈯. This character is called called "Squared Cjk Unified Ideograph-6307". [0] http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#1f22f http://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#1f22f [1] https://unicode-table.com/en/6307/ https://unicode-table.com/en/6307/ [2] Insert rant about Han unification [3] https://unicode-table.com/en/blocks/enclosed-ideographic-supplement/ https://unicode-table.com/en/blocks/enclosed-ideographic-sup...
  - cooper12 10y ago
    My guess would be because of semantics. The plain version is the character itself used in text. The squared version is a specific symbol used in television for "designated hitter". It's the same reason that there are unicode characters that looks exactly like latin characters, except they're in different unicode blocks. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph#Unicode_homoglyphs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph#Unicode_homoglyphs)

sho_hn 10y ago

At least in Korea, people don't really use inline emoji characters much - but they use stickers (larger, often animated cartoon images of characters in a variety of emotional stances or life situations, some with associated personalities or relationships with each other) a whole ton. They serve a variety of purposes, e.g. responding with a summary of what the other person said to signal understanding/empathy/compassion, teasing, flirting ... there's a lot of joy in maintaining and using a sticker collection actually, picking the right sticker for an occasion is a unique form of eloquence to collectively revel in. It's a big celebration of reading a room, wit and quick thinking, just using images. It's some of the most joyful creative writing around, I think. People also wind up adopting certain characters as "theirs" in a group chat, so it adds to identity.

joveian 10y ago
After I played my first JRPG, I notice every time a game tries to be at all role playing without showing character emotion images next to dialog. I would never have imagined it adding so much had someone just described it. What you describe sounds like the same thing in a different context.

trans1iterati 10y ago

It would be really cool to have anglicized transliterations of these, as a standardized expression notation, with tool-tip call-outs. The reason I say this, is because I have no idea what "🈯️" is, if it appears within a body of text, in isolation. Something like: !:symbolic-character-name: or: [symbol]character-name[/symbol] Think about the boundaries in communication something like that might smash. (...or inadvertently create, I hope not!)

rch 10y ago
Sounds like a good browser extension to me. I'd also like to have filters and conversions to preserve reasonable ideographs (e.g. ㊗), but optionally swap in a plain-text equivalent when warranted.

masklinn 10y ago

It's a bit odd (and sad) that the "Where is the Dumpling Emoji" project — or the corresponding section of TFA — makes no reference whatsoever to the previous Unicode Power Symbol project[0] which was also a grassroot effort to get "missing" emoji into the standard (in that case the IEC Power Symbols ⏻ ⏼ ⏽ and ⏾ with the "Power Off" symbol reusing the pre-existing ⭘ "HEAVY CIRCLE" codepoint), although it was obviously more reduced in scope and lifespan. [0] http://unicodepowersymbol.com http://unicodepowersymbol.com

angry-hacker 10y ago

Someone who is white and living in Eastern Europe I find comments like these deeply offensive: > overwhelmingly male, overwhelming white and overwhelmingly engineers This is me, but why does every article picture me as someone who has power and decision maker. Do I have to feel bad that I am male, white and engineer? I have seen hunger, REAL povery, communism, I make less than your McDonalds worker in U.S now and my standard of living is low compared to developed world. Why do I have to always read something is wrong with me?

s_kilk 10y ago
It's just good old-fashioned prejudice. Because you have attributes X, Y, and Z, you must therefore be a bad person.
sho_hn 10y ago
I don't think your frustration is warranted in this context, and context matters. The statement (a quote used by the article) was making a claim as to the staff involved with the expansion of Unicode being too homogeneous. If true, this could realistically pose a problem. I have some first-hand experience with this: I'm male, white and an engineer as well, but I'm also an immigrant in an East Asian country. Doing so and acquiring local cultural competency involved learning many things that weren't readily available to be learned in my European country of origin. It's therefore very credible to me that to serve a global audience, Unicode would benefit from a diverse staff trained in diverse environments due the way skills and knowledge are distributed. In other words, no, there isn't anything wrong with being male, white and an engineer (and nothing in the text says so, btw), but there might be (or have been; the article describes a shake-up in the process thereafter) a problem with decision makers at Unicode overwhelmingly fitting those specs. I think you can easily make the argument for diverse representation in this use case. This would of course benefit from the viewpoint of someone more familiar with the makeup of the Unicode Consortium.
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  It is just that every third article I read here on HN tells me so. I guess it's not frustration over only this particular article. But if people talk about diversity and tolerance, they should remind themselves that not all white people have the same privilege as you do over there. Where I live(d) I wasn't (and still don't) have an opportunity to open a developer account to so I can submit my (free) app to the store. I wasn't able to publish my app. I had to travel and go through horror making a bank account in another country just so I could submit an app to app store. I haven't had any influence over other people or groups, neither did my grand grand grand parents. I'm sick and tired reading from half of the tech (!!!!) article that all white men have some magical privilege.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]