It's a picture-character, sure; but I'd think that, like kaomoji before them, they've been used since the beginning to express the attitude of the writer, a kind of "emotion" (in linguistic terms, the "mood" of the utterance). For example, consider the ubiquitous ♥ sign, which also predates cellphone emoji; it's long been used in manga to denote a mood of flirtatiousness, fondness, cuteness, playfulness and so on. Likewise, the "veins popping" sign in manga ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrossPoppingVeins ) may be a drawing of veins; but it's used quite abstractly to denote an angry mood, and can even be used among text, in speech balloons.
2016-02-29 19:24 GMT-03:00 Asmus Freytag (t) <asmus-...@ix.netcom.com>: > On 2/29/2016 1:55 PM, Philippe Verdy wrote: > > . Well emojis were initially designed to track amotions and form a sort of > new language, > > > E-moji means "picture-character" in Japanese, has nothing to do (at first) > with emotions. > > A./ >
