表情符号是语言吗（表情符号是如何改变我们的语言的）

How Emoji Have ChangedLanguage?

发表情符号可以点餐？用表情符号翻译经典小说？我们的语言表达是否被表情符号改变了？快来看一看吧！

The fastest-growing language in the UnitedKingdom has no words. In fact, it'scomposed entirely of pictures — cartoonfaces, hands, foods and numerous otherobjects designed to convey emotion andinformation without a single letter orcharacter.在英国，发展最快的语言并不是由单词构成的。实际上，这种语言完全由图片构成，包括卡通的脸、手势、美食和许多其他图标。无需任何字母或汉字就能传达情感和信息。I'm talking about emoji, and when a recentsurvey by TalkTalk Mobile found that morethan 80 percent of Brits use emojis regularlyto communicate, it prompted BangorUniversity linguistics professor Vyy Evans tocall emoji "the fastest growing form oflanguage ever based on its incredibleadoption rate and speed of evolution."这种语言就是表情符号。英国 TalkTalk Mobile的一项调查发现，超过80％的英国人经常使用表情符号进行交流，因此，班戈大学的语言学教授维维恩·埃文斯（Vyy Evans）称表情符号是“有史以来发展最快的语言形式，有着惊人的使用率和演变速度。”But Brits certainly aren't the only ones usingemoji. According to Emojitracker, emoji usehas risen more than 50 percent worldwidesince December 2013. Emoji are souniversally popular that they've been usedto translate classic novels.不过，并非只有英国人使用表情符号。根据网站 Emojitracker 的数据，自2013年12月以来，全球表情符号的使用量增长了50％以上。表情符号太流行了，人们甚至用它来翻译经典小说。Tweet a pizza emoji to Domino's and you'llsoon be able to get a fresh pie delivered inunder 30 minutes. Use an emoji depictingan endangered animal and the WorldWildlife Fund will tally your usage andsuggest a donation amount to save the real-life species. 在推特上给达美乐披萨发送一个“”，你就能在30分钟内收到新鲜的食物。如果你使用了濒危动物的表情符号，那么世界自然基金会将统计你的使用记录，并据此设定捐赠金额，以拯救现实生活中的物种。There are even emoji-only social networksin development, as well as an emojitranslation project, and 2014's word of theyear wasn't even a word — it was an emojiheart.更有甚者，只能使用表情符号的社交网络与表情符号翻译项目也正在发展。此外，2014年的年度热词甚至都不是一个词汇，而是“❤️”。

Where they came from表情符号从何而来？In the 1990s, Shigetaka Kurita, anemployee at a Japanese telecom company, was tasked with finding a way todistinguish its pager service from itscompetitors.20世纪90年代，日本一家电信公司的员工栗田穰崇（Shigetaka Kurita）为了使自家公司脱颖于竞争对手，受命寻找优化传呼机服务的方法。Kurita suggested creating cartoon imagesthat could be sent between users, an ideahe thought would appeal to teens.栗田穰崇建议设计一些可在用户之间互传的卡通图像。他认为这个想法能吸引到青少年。He designed the first 176 emoji — a termthat basically means "picture word" — using a pencil and paper, and they were sopopular that other telecom companiesbegan using emoji as well.他手绘了第一批表情符号，共176个。这些符号非常流行，其它电信公司甚至也开始使用。When the smartphone market took off in2007, Apple knew it would need to includean emoji keyboard to infiltrate theJapanese market, so it buried an emojikeyboard in the iPhone. But it didn't takelong for non-Japanese users to find it andbegin texting their own smiley faces.2007年，随着智能手机市场腾飞，苹果公司意识到自己需要增加一个表情符号键盘，以渗透日本市场。但是，没过多久，非日本用户就发现了这个键盘，并开始发送自己的笑脸。

How we use them表情符号该怎么使用？Using pictures for communication is hardlya new concept.使用图片进行交流并不算一个新的概念。Pictograms, a pictorial representation of aphysical object, were the earliest form ofwritten language. From there, we moved onto logograms — such as # for number and% for percent — and ideograms likesymbols of men and women tocommunicate which bathroom is intendedfor which sex.象形文字，是物体的图形表示方式，也是最早的书面语言形式。从象形文字起，我们逐渐开始使用语素文字（如，使用＃代表数字，％代表百分比）和表意文字（比如使用表示男女的符号以区分男女洗手间）。

The way emoji are used isn't so differentfrom this, but what sets them apart is howthey're not only employed to replace wordsaltogether, but also to express emotion oradd intent.表情符号的使用方式与此并没有太大不同。然而，表情符号特殊在除了完全取代词汇，它们还可以表达情感或增加意义。The simplicity of emoji makes themunderstandable across linguistic barriers, which is useful considering the variety oflanguages spoken worldwide, and the factthat we text each other more frequentlythan any other form of communication, according to the Pew Research Center.皮尤研究中心称，表情符号的简洁性使之跨越了语言障碍，为读者所理解。考虑到全球语言种类繁多，而且与其他任何形式的交流相比，人与人之间发消息的频率更高，因此，表情符号的这一特性十分有用。When we speak to someone face-to-face, we're presented with numerous cues thathelp us interpret meaning. In addition to thewords used, we're privy to the speaker'stone, expressions and body language.当我们与某人面对面交谈时，我们会用大量的信息铺垫来表达自己的意图。也就是说，除了词汇之外，我们还要理解说话者的语气、表情和肢体语言。However, when we're communicating via akeyboard and screen, we lose 93 percentof our communication tools, according tothe work of psychologist Albert Mehrabian.然而，根据心理学家阿尔伯特·梅拉比安（Albert Mehrabian）的研究，当人们通过键盘和屏幕交流时，上述途径中的93％会失效。That's where emoji come in.这时，表情符号出现了。Following up a text with a smiling emoji canindicate that the message sender is beingplayful or that the statement should betaken as a joke. In fact, studies show thatincluding a smiley face in an email canreduce negative interpretations.在消息后面加上一个微笑表情，可以表明发消息的一方在开玩笑，或者说，这条消息应该被看作玩笑。实际上，研究表明，在电子邮件中加上笑脸符号可以减少负面误解。Emoji are even increasingly used in theworkplace, with 76 percent of Americanssaying they use them in digitalcommunication at work, which is hardlysurprising considering millennials are thebiggest generation in the Americanworkforce.甚至在工作场所，表情符号的使用也愈发频繁，有76％的美国人称自己工作时会使用表情符号进行数字通信。考虑到千禧一代是美国劳动力的主力军，这一现象不足为奇。

Are emoji really a language?表情符号真的是一种语言吗？Fred Benenson, the man who proposed the translation of the Herman Melville classic"Moby Dick" into emoji, certainly thinks so.弗雷德·班尼森（Fred Benenson）毫无疑问会持肯定意见，他曾提议将赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）的经典作品《白鲸记》翻译成表情符号。" The fact that emoji is available in software legitimizes it as a form of humanexpression," he told New York Magazine.他告诉《纽约杂志》：“表情符号在软件中的随处可用，使得它理所应当地成为了一种表达方式。”What would an emoji sentence look like? Here's how Melville's classic opening line— "Call me Ishmael" — appears inBenenson's "Emoji Dick".表情符号组成的句子是什么样的？梅尔维尔的经典开场白“叫我以实玛利（Call meIshmael）”，在班尼森的“表情符号版《白鲸记》”中，就是下图样子。

While the telephone is fairlystraightforward, what about the rest? Dothe boat and the whale indicate that thisman is Ishmael? Does the OK sign at theend mean he's fine being reffered to assuch?虽然电话符号所表达的意思（电话此处表示“call”）确实简洁明了，但其余的符号呢？小船和鲸鱼能否表明这个人的名字是以实玛利？最后的“OK”符号能否表示他愿意被如此称呼呢？I asked a co-worker — a millennial who'stexted using only emojis before — howshe'd interpret the emoji sentence if it weretexted to her. Her response was, "Call Boband let's go sailing and look for whales,OK?"我曾询问过一个同事（一个之前发消息只用表情符号的千禧一代），如果她收到了上面这串表情符号，她会如何理解。她回答到：“打电话给鲍勃，让我们一起去海上寻找鲸鱼，好吗？”Maybe emoji-only communication requirescontext, or maybe it's just not meant to betreated as a language.也许，只包含表情符号的信息需要上下文才能被准确地理解，又或许我们不该将表情符号视为一种语言。Arika Okrent, a linguist and author of "In theLand of Invented Languages," says emojisare merely "a game of charades."阿里卡·奥克伦特（Arika Okrent）是一名语言学家，也是《身处人造语言之地》一书的作者，他表示表情符号仅是一种“字谜游戏”。Other image-based languages, such asBlissymbolics, haven't really taken off, butBenenson thinks emoji have potential.虽然，布力辛博语等其它基于图像的语言尚未得到真正的普及，但是班尼森认为表情符号极具潜力。"Unlike natural languages such as English,emoji is almost universally recognizablebecause it exploits the visualrepresentation system," he said. "Emojiwon't replace traditional languages, but itwill increasingly be used to enhance them."班尼森称：“与英语等自然语言不同，表情符号应用了视觉表现系统，因此，大部分人都可以识别这种符号。表情符号不会取代传统语言，而是会越来越多地用于增强传统语言效果。”