Searching for the World’s First Emoji Translator

 

Today Translations, a London company, is searching to find the world’s first emoji translator. They have noted that they want to discover how these small icons are interpreted by different countries. For instance, in Japan a white flower is used to indicate a teacher is pleased with a student’s work. In other countries however, this would not necessarily make sense.

Originally, the emoji (which was invented by Shigetaka Kuritawas in the 1990s) was only a few icons. In 2011-2012, the emoji craze took over when companies such as Apple created an emoji keyboard for their phones. Now, as one of the fastest growing languages in the world, the emoji consists of more than 1,800 icons.

The emoji “Face with Tears of Joy” was even designated the 2015 word of the year by Oxford Dictionary. This was the first time Oxford Dictionary gave this award to a picture. It was chosen because of its wide usage around the world.

Interested applicants are required to have a “passion for emojis” and “be aware of cultural/international differences”. The translator awarded the job will be paid per emoji translated. While this first round of hiring is on a freelance basis, the company hopes to eventually hire a full-time emoji translator.

Today Translations has even released an application test to try out if interested, which you can find here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvVN2mlLiyNaKFe0cDqvBaIUDwYG-s6qWb7kredSsLBaW3xg/viewform?c=0&w=1. The test consists of “Emoji to English Translation”, “English to Emoji”, and “Corporate and Cultural Guidance”.