The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year has been announced, and it’s not a word of a phrase. It’s the Face with Tears of Joy emoji. This was marked the most popular emoji by SwiftKey, along with ‘brexit’, ‘on fleek’ and ‘lumbersexual’.
Is it All Going Downhill From Here?
Texting with emoji as opposed to words has been widely spread, and this result is a direct reflection of the trend. Will the Oxford Dictionaries now feature definitions for the different Emoji on the upcoming keyboards?
It’s possible that this kicks off the trend for real and people start replacing words for these icons until we’re speaking in one script – the emoji script. If institutions like the Oxford Dictionaries do give entire definitions for the emoji keyboard, we could unite the world with one language.
The Trend is Laughable, But Not to be Taken Lightly
If the Face with Tears of Joy is really representative of 2015, then we can expect to see emoji becoming more intricate and spread to more cultures.
The trio of dancing girls could even become the next way to invite girlfriends to a night out. At this point, anything could happen. Perhaps the word of 2016 is a Facebook sticker, or something of the sort.
What’s in a language, anyway?
