There are thousands of Chinese characters and thousands of Kanji. Maybe we are destined to replace all existing written language with 10’s of thousands of emoji?
I’ll be illiterate in that world, but my kids seem to grok it.
Chinese characters can be used as a writing system because they're actually highly abstract. They don't look like what their ancestors were supposed to represent. That's a feature, not a bug.
The issue with emoji is that they're very literal.
The irony is that I think 囧 is the only emoji that is allowed on HN. Seriously, though, there are plenty of very old out of use characters that can be used as emoji, and modern use of Chinese characters in new words is increasingly phonetic.
AFAIK, Chinese characters are words, not a more basic unit. The thing with emoji is that there’s no easy way to use them without typing their associated terms.
raincole|9 months ago
The issue with emoji is that they're very literal.
seanmcdirmid|9 months ago
skydhash|9 months ago
dylan604|9 months ago