By Carol Blair Vaughn

Oxford Dictionary has announced its Word of The Year for 2015 – and SURPRISE!! – It’s not a word at all!

This year’s word is the emoji “Face with Tears of Joy”, which was found to be used by more folks than any other emoji worldwide.  It turns out that Costa Rica has sent the most emoji art in the world in 2015, in our digital communication, according to Ginger Keyboard, who tracts this sort of thing.

“Emoji” is defined as a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc., in electronic communication.  But wait, this is a pictograph, not a word, so how was this decision made by Oxford Dictionary’s revered selection panel?

President of Oxford Dictionaries (owned by Oxford University Press), Casper Grathwohl, says, “Emoji culture has become so popular that individual characters have developed their own trends and stories. “

The experts at Oxford Dictionary found the symbol of a smiley face weeping with joy ”embodies a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessively immediate.”

Grathwohl went on to say, “You can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire visually focused demands of 21st Century communication.  It’s not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps – it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully.  As a result, emoji are becoming an incredibly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders.”

So it seems, a picture really IS worth a thousand words.

Emojis were invented in 1999 by the Japanese mobile device designer Shigetaka Kurita.  He designed the first emoji for cell phones.  Fast forward to today, when it’s nearly impossible to imagine digital conversation without a happy face, heart, pile of excrement, or the borderline obscene eggplant.  It took Kurita only one month to invent the world’s first 180 emoji.

Last year’s word was “vape”, and the year before was “selfie”, so Oxford Dictionary is doing their best to keep the world up to speed linguistically.  Since 2004, they have been selecting a word “that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year.”

There is now even an organization called Emojipedia.org, where you can review thousands of emojis, even adopting one for use in your business or personal communication, for only $6,000 USD, for one year.

BTW, various renditions of Costa Rica’s most popular emoji – the Costa Rica flag – are available for adoption.  That sure would jazz up your smiley faces, eggplants, and hand gestures for the coming year.

About the Author

Carol Blair Vaughn holds a Master’s Degree in Performing Arts and is a retired college professor from Washington, D.C. She inherited her love for Latin America from her father, the former U.S. Ambassadorto Colombia, Panama, and Director of the Peace Corps, Jack Vaughn.

Carol writes for the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) and for an English language club in the southern region of Costa Rica. In the past, Carol served as Editor in Chief of What’s on Tap magazine.