Apparently, some people wonder if emojis will replace written language. Well...

[xiphias]

Will emoji replace written language, says the occasional overwrought clickbait headline? Well, no. It works the OTHER way.

🐮 :cow:
🏠 :house:
🐫 :camel:
🚪 :door:
🎦 :cinema:
⚓ :anchor:
🔪 :knife:
🏢 :office:
🚲 :bike:
✊ :fist:
✋ :hand:
🔱 :trident:
🌊 :ocean:
🐟 :fish:
💈 :barber:
👀 :eyes:
👄 :lips:
🎣 :fishing_pole_and_fish:
💉 :syringe:
😐 :neutral_face:
😄 :smile:
❌ :x:

Ox, house, camel, door, window, hook, weapon, wall, wheel, hand, palm-of-hand, goad, water, fish, support-pole, eye, mouth, hunting/fishing, needle, head, tooth, marking symbol.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, Paleo-Semitic, anyway. That's basically my interpretation of the Phoenician alphabet, Hebrew version.

That third one, for instance -- Hebrew bases its gimmel on a picture of a camel, but the Phoenician gimel was probably based on a throwing stick. If I'd found a boomerang emoji, I would have used that. And nun had been based on a snake in Proto-Canaanite, but was redone as a fish. And some of those were a bit further out; I couldn't find a "window" emoji, and went for a cinema, instead. Barber pole instead of support column, syringe instead of needle. Other things like that.

So, at the levels of approximation and abstraction I'm doing, I can't really say that I'm doing the Hebrew alphabet in particular. It's just me picking up emoji that match up a bit to the original emoji that led to ninety percent of all other alphabets that ever existed.