SOCIETYMOST OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
(INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION)
Every country joining the European Union (EU) must nominate
a primary language. With the addition of Croatian in 20 13,
the EU now has 24 official languages, from Bulgarian to
Swedish. The task of translating between these languages
is shouldered by thousands of translators, a process that
costs the EU around €330 m ($349 m; £287 m) a year.MOST CONFUSING EMOJI
In an Apr 2016 study published by the University of
Minnesota, USA, volunteers were asked to rank emojis on
a 10-point emotional scale from positive to negative. With
interpretations ranging from euphoric laughter to extreme
pain, Microsoft’s “smiling face with open mouth and tightly
closed eyes” gave it the largest overall spread of 4.4 points.MOST COMMON LANGUAGE
According to online language resource Ethnologue,
Chinese is listed as an official language by 35 countries
and is spoken by 1.302 billion people (see opposite).
With 897 million speakers, Mandarin is by far the
most common variety of Chinese. Spanish can claim
427 million speakers across 31 countries, while there
are 339 million English speakers in 106 countries.FIRST BRAND WITH ITS
OWN EMOJI ON TWITTER
From 18 Sep 20 15 until the
end of the year, typing
#shareacoke into a tweet
on Twitter brought up an
emoji of two clinking Coke
bottles. The emoji, part
of a marketing campaign
devised by creative agency
Wieden + Kennedy, was
a product of Coca-Cola’s
partnership with Twitter.
Rival Pepsi followed suit
later that year with its
own paid-for emoji Twitter
campaign, while 2016’s
#pepsimoji enabled Twitter
users to add branded
stickers to their photos.MOST GENDER-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE
For around 1,000 years, in a region of Hunan Province in
southern China, nüshu – “women’s writing” – has been used
exclusively by women to communicate their feelings to other
women. It is believed to have been invented by a concubine
of an emperor of the Song dynasty (960–1279 ce). The last-
known woman proficient in nüshu outside scholarly circles,
Yang Huanyi, died on 20 Sep 2004 at the age of 98.
MOST UNOFFICIAL LANGUAGES FOR A COUNTRY
Located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, Papua
New Guinea is home to speakers of 840 languages – a
comprehensive list that runs from Abadi to Zimakani and
includes Tok Pisin, Motu and English. Most of the island’s
7 million inhabitants live in fragmented rural areas with their
own regional dialects – which may explain why most of the
country’s languages are spoken by fewer than 1,000 people.LONGEST NOVEL
TRANSLATED
INTO EMOJI
In 2009, data engineer
Fred Benenson (USA) set
up a project to translate
the novel Moby-Dick by
Herman Melville into emoji.
The book was chosen
partly because of its great
length: 206,052 words.
Hundreds of individuals
were contracted to
translate one of the
book’s 6 ,438 sentences
into emoji. A vote took
place to select the best
versions, and these were
compiled into a single
work. The book was
completed in 2010 and
entitled Emoji Dick.FIRST EMOJI
The earliest pictograms known as “emoji” were designed
by Shigetaka Kurita (JPN, left) in 1998–99, while devising
the first mobile internet platform – known as “i-mode” – for
the Japanese telecommunications company NTT DOCOMO.
Inspired by symbols used in weather forecasts and manga,
Kurita invented the original range of 180 expressions to
provide a concise form of communication for mobile phones.