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> By contrast, emojis can only represent a very limited number of words But in combination, they can represent many more, surely, just like hieroglyphs or Chin

> By contrast, emojis can only represent a very limited number of words But in combination, they can represent many more, surely, just like hieroglyphs or Chinese characters?

bradrn 5y ago
Sure, but in that case you’d need to have some sort of convention for what each combination represents, and at that point you’ve basically invented a whole new writing system based on emoji. As I said previously: > Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from turning emoji into a complete writing system, and inventing a language and grammar around it. But emojis as they are used today do not constitute a complete writing system.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the equivalent of saying "smoke" would be using a smile, an open mouth and an ok sign to indicate the sounds "sm - oh - ok." Rather than, for instance, showing a picture of a cigarette.
- bradrn 5y ago
  IIRC it would actually have those phonetic components plus a picture of a cigarette or some other semantic determiner. I’m not sure if many Egyptian words were written purely phonetically, though I’m hardly an expert on this topic. [EDIT: Just checked Loprieno’s Egyptian grammar, which says on the topic: ‘While some words of common use … are written only phonologically, i.e. only with a combination of consonantal signs … many items of the basic vocabulary of Egyptian are expressed by semagrams which indicate their own semantic meaning. They do this iconically (by reproducing the object itself), through rebus (by portraying an entity whose name displays a similar phonological structure), or symbolically (by depicting an item metaphorically or metonymically associated with the object)’.]
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    Yeah, it would be most likely have a determinative symbol showing a mouth, hand or person to indicate the action — less likely to have the action itself (a person smoking a cigarette or a cigarette itself). Here is a nice Unicode dictionary https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemeaning.html https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablem... 

> By contrast, emojis can only represent a very limited number of words But in combination, they can represent many more, surely, just like hieroglyphs or Chinese characters?

bradrn 5y ago

Sure, but in that case you’d need to have some sort of convention for what each combination represents, and at that point you’ve basically invented a whole new writing system based on emoji. As I said previously: > Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from turning emoji into a complete writing system, and inventing a language and grammar around it. But emojis as they are used today do not constitute a complete writing system.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the equivalent of saying "smoke" would be using a smile, an open mouth and an ok sign to indicate the sounds "sm - oh - ok." Rather than, for instance, showing a picture of a cigarette.

bradrn 5y ago
IIRC it would actually have those phonetic components plus a picture of a cigarette or some other semantic determiner. I’m not sure if many Egyptian words were written purely phonetically, though I’m hardly an expert on this topic. [EDIT: Just checked Loprieno’s Egyptian grammar, which says on the topic: ‘While some words of common use … are written only phonologically, i.e. only with a combination of consonantal signs … many items of the basic vocabulary of Egyptian are expressed by semagrams which indicate their own semantic meaning. They do this iconically (by reproducing the object itself), through rebus (by portraying an entity whose name displays a similar phonological structure), or symbolically (by depicting an item metaphorically or metonymically associated with the object)’.]
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Yeah, it would be most likely have a determinative symbol showing a mouth, hand or person to indicate the action — less likely to have the action itself (a person smoking a cigarette or a cigarette itself). Here is a nice Unicode dictionary https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemeaning.html https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablem... 