Origin of the Word “Emoji”

You know, Grant, earlier we were talking about emoji, and for the longest time, I thought the word emoji had something to do with emotions. I thought that was the origin of the term, but it’s not.

Yeah, it’s a wonderful linguistic coincidence, and I love it for that. Yeah, emoji is actually a combination of the Japanese terms e for picture and moji, which means written character. So together, emoji means something like pictogram. How cool is that?

Yeah, that’s very cool. And it’s not sourced from English like so many Japanese for modern culture are.

Right, right. Now, here’s a question for you, though. How do you say the plural of emoji?

Oh, that’s in dispute. But I will stake my claim on that the plural and the singular are the same.

Yes. Yes, technically that’s true because the plural of emoji in Japanese is the same word as generally happens in that language. The singular and the plural are the same. And in English, the plural of emoji can be either emoji or emojis. The first one, emoji, is a little more formal. But, you know, when I think about it, I think I use both.

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