Emoji are an established part of digital life. Still, few of us think about them in terms of linguistics. “As a system of communication, they leave English, the world’s global language, in the dust,” says Dr. Vyvyan Evans, language expert and digital communication technologist. Evans, who wrote The Emoji Code in 2017, insists that there is much to learn from eggplant and “crying-laughing” emoji about the way humans communicate. 

OKECHUKWU NZELU: Is emoji a language?

VYVYAN EVANS: No. A language functions meaningfully in two directions. The first is a “words-to-world” fit. That means the words represent ideas in the world, either concrete (a physical thing, like a cat) or abstract (like feminism). And the second is a “word-to-word” fit: basically, a grammar. Emoji only...