• WhatsApp Emoji

WhatsApp Emoji (Photo : Facebook)

Oxford Dictionaries' 2015 Word of the Year is actually one pictograph among an unlimited set of little images that can range from smiley faces to red angry faces, from happy cats to family portraits, and include a coffee cup, football, taco, house, thumbs-up, hat, sun, and shoe: emoji. Oxford University Press (OUP) explained that the Face with Tears of Joy emoji was chosen because it is a symbol of the ideas, emotions, and activities of people during the year 2015.

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OUP reported that the word "emoji" surged during this year. In addition, the group of picture characters that the word represents did as well.

The university press teamed up with iOS and Android keyboard SwiftKey to study data on worldwide emoji use. The "tears of joy" face is the most popular emoji pictograph throughout the world. It makes up 17 percent of all emojis used in the United States, which is nearly twice last year's figure, according to The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, researchers discovered that the use of the word "emoji" also skyrocketed during the past year. It has been used over three times more in 2015  than last year.

Some words and phrases that were runners-up for the 2015 Word of the Year included: ad blocker, Dark Web, lumbersexual (young urban man with tough appearance), on fleek (attractive or stylish), sharing economy (peer-based online sharing of goods and services), and they (person with unstated gender),  

Collins Dictionaries also released its 2015 words of the year this month, according to CNET. The top word was "binge-watch," which refers to viewing a big number of TV programs at one time, such as all episodes of a television series' season.

Shigetaka Kurita invented emoji for cellphones while developing the world's first-ever mobile Internet system in 1999. He designed the first emoji set of 180 pixelated pictures in one month.

The literal Japanese meaning of the word emoji is "picture character."

Here is the history of emojis told using emojis: