絵文字 (Emoji) 顔文字 (Kaomoji)

15th July – 文月

The commonly used word “Emoji” is actually Japanese, 絵 (E) as drawings, 文字 (Moji) as Words.

Nowadays there are various emojis that we can use in the text, this made our communication a lot easier and more emotional – including emojis, it is easier to express the feeling in texts, with less misunderstandings.

In the ancient time before the words were created, people used to draw things to tell the stories, to communicate. After thousands years, we have come back to the original and use Emoji to efficiently communicate without talking.

Even the word “Emoji” comes from Japanese, the first Emoji prototype wasn’t invented by Japanese – Scott Fahlman from USA used 🙂 and 😦 for the first time in 1982.

Later on, Japanese engineer Taishi Wakabayashi used (^_^) in 1986. You can see the smiling face by looking straight front, unlike the 🙂 and 😦 looking from sideways. This type of facial emoji prototype is called “顔文字 (Kaomoji)” in Japanese, as 顔 (Kao) means face.

Then, Shigetaka Kurita from Japanese phone company invented the first colorful and various shaped Emoji to use on the phone.

Many people might use 絵文字, but probably 顔文字 might not so familiar.

Here are some examples of 顔文字

(((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o))) – excited

Σ（ﾟдﾟlll） – shocked

( ；∀；) or (T_T) – crying

＼(^o^)／　 – yay

ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣◇￣)┘ – run away

m(._.)m – sorry

(//∇//) – shy

There is a mark ^_^ on Japanese keyboard (*iphone) so you can use them in text without typing from the scratch!