Emoticons is a Unicode block containing emoticons or emoji. Most of them are intended as representations of faces, although some of them include hand gestures or non-human characters (a horned "imp", monkeys, cartoon cats).
The block was first proposed in 2008, and first implemented in Unicode version 6.0 (2010). The reason for its adoption was largely for compatibility with a de facto standard that had been established by the early 2000s by Japanese telephone carriers, encoded in unused ranges with lead bytes 0xF5 to 0xF9 of the Shift JIS standard. KDDI has gone much further than this, and has introduced hundreds more in the space with lead bytes 0xF3 and 0xF4.
Descriptions 1F600😀grinning face1F601😁grinning face with smiling eyes1F602😂face with tears of joy1F603😃smiling face with open mouth (cf. ☺)1F604😄smiling face with open mouth and smiling eyes1F605😅smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat1F606😆smiling face with open mouth and tightly-closed eyes1F607😇smiling face with halo 1F608😈smiling face with horns (cf. 👿 "imp")1F609😉winking face1F60A😊smiling face with smiling eyes1F60B😋face savouring delicious food1F60C😌relieved face1F60D😍smiling face with heart-shaped eyes1F60E😎smiling face with sunglasses1F60F😏smirking face1F610😐neutral face (also used for "west wind" 西 in some Mahjong annotation)1F611😑expressionless face1F612😒unamused face1F613😓face with cold sweat1F614😔pensive face 1F615😕confused face1F616😖confounded face1F617😗kissing face1F618😘face throwing a kiss1F619😙kissing face with smiling eyes1F61A😚kissing face with closed eyes1F61B😛face with stuck-out tongue1F61C😜face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye1F61D😝face with stuck-out tongue and tightly-closed eyes1F61E😞disappointed face1F61F😟worried face1F620😠angry face1F621😡pouting face1F622😢crying face1F623😣persevering face1F624😤face with look of triumph1F625😥disappointed but relieved face1F626😦frowning face with open mouth1F627😧anguished face1F628😨fearful face1F629😩weary face1F62A😪sleepy face1F62B😫tired face1F62C😬grimacing face1F62D😭loudly crying face1F62E😮face with open mouth1F62F😯hushed face1F630😰face with open mouth and cold sweat1F631😱face screaming in fear1F632😲astonished face1F633😳flushed face1F634😴sleeping face1F635😵dizzy face1F636😶face without mouth (cf. ⚇ "white circle with two dots")1F637😷face with medical mask1F638😸grinning cat face with smiling eyes1F639😹cat face with tears of joy1F63A😺smiling cat face with open mouth1F63B😻smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes1F63C😼cat face with wry smile1F63D😽kissing cat face with closed eyes1F63E😾pouting cat face1F63F😿crying cat face 1F640🙀weary cat face1F641🙁slightly frowning face1F642🙂slightly smiling face1F643🙃upside-down face1F644🙄face with rolling eyes1F645🙅face with "no good" gesture, with lower arms crossed, derived from the Japanese "batsu" two-handed gesture for "no" or "wrong".1F646🙆face with "ok" gesture, described as a person with arms raised above the head forming a "circle", derived from the Japanese "maru" two-handed gesture for "ok" or "correct".1F647🙇person bowing deeply (dogeza).1F648🙈see-no-evil monkey1F649🙉hear-no-evil monkey1F64A🙊speak-no-evil monkey1F64B🙋happy person raising one hand, a person raising one hand as if to answer a question.1F64C🙌person raising both hands in celebration, on many platforms depicted as just the raised hands (Apple name: "Hands Raised in Celebration").1F64D🙍person frowning1F64E🙎person with pouting face1F64F🙏person with folded hands (to indicate variously sorrow, regret, pleading, praying, bowing, thanking). In most platforms depicted as just the hand, pressed together but not folded (Apple name: "Hands Pressed Together").
Chart
Variant forms Each emoticon has two variants: U+FE0E (VARIATION SELECTOR-15) selects text presentation (e.g. 😊︎ 😐︎ ☹︎), U+FE0F (VARIATION SELECTOR-16) selects emoji-style (e.g. 😊️ 😐️ ☹️). If there is no variation selector appended, the default is the emoji-style. Example:
Unicode code points Result U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE) 😐 U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE), U+FE0E (VARIATION SELECTOR-15) U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE), U+FE0F (VARIATION SELECTOR-16)
Emoji modifiers
The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block has 54 emoji that represent people or body parts. A set of "Emoji modifiers" are defined for emojis that represent people or body parts. These are modifier characters intended to define the skin colour to be used for the emoji. The draft document suggesting the introduction of this system for the representation of "human diversity" was submitted in 2015 by Mark Davis of Google and Peter Edberg of Apple Inc."The default representation of these modifier characters when used alone is as a color swatch. Whenever one of these characters immediately follows certain characters (such as WOMAN), then a font should show the sequence as a single glyph corresponding to the image for the person(s) or body part with the specified skin tone" Draft Unicode Technical Report #51 "UNICODE EMOJI" Version 1.0 (draft 10) eds. Mark Davis (Google Inc.), Peter Edberg (Apple Inc.), 2015-05-08. Five symbol modifier characters were added with Unicode 8.0 to provide a range of skin tones for human emoji. These modifiers are called EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-1-2, , , , and (U+1F3FB–U+1F3FF): 🏻 🏼 🏽 🏾 🏿. They are based on the Fitzpatrick scale for classifying human skin color.
Human emoji U+ 1F645 1F646 1F647 1F64B 1F64C 1F64D 1F64E 1F64F emoji 🙅 🙆 🙇 🙋 🙌 🙍 🙎 🙏 FITZ-1-2 🙅🏻 🙆🏻 🙇🏻 🙋🏻 🙌🏻 🙍🏻 🙎🏻 🙏🏻 FITZ-3 🙅🏼 🙆🏼 🙇🏼 🙋🏼 🙌🏼 🙍🏼 🙎🏼 🙏🏼 FITZ-4 🙅🏽 🙆🏽 🙇🏽 🙋🏽 🙌🏽 🙍🏽 🙎🏽 🙏🏽 FITZ-5 🙅🏾 🙆🏾 🙇🏾 🙋🏾 🙌🏾 🙍🏾 🙎🏾 🙏🏾 FITZ-6 🙅🏿 🙆🏿 🙇🏿 🙋🏿 🙌🏿 🙍🏿 🙎🏿 🙏🏿
Additional human emoji can be found in other Unicode blocks: Dingbats, Miscellaneous Symbols, Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs, Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A and Transport and Map Symbols.
History The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Emoticons block:
Version Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document 6.0 U+1F601..1F610, 1F612..1F614, 1F616, 1F618, 1F61A, 1F61C..1F61E, 1F620..1F625, 1F628..1F62B, 1F62D, 1F630..1F633, 1F635..1F640, 1F645..1F64F 63 N3583 N3681 N3607 N3711 N3713 N3722 doc) N3769 N3778 N3777 N3790 N3806 N3826 N3828 N3829 doc) html) 6.1 U+1F600, 1F611, 1F615, 1F617, 1F619, 1F61B, 1F61F, 1F626..1F627, 1F62C, 1F62E..1F62F, 1F634 13 N3583 N3681 N3790 N3829 doc) html) 7.0 U+1F641..1F642 2 N3982 N4103 8.0 U+1F643..1F644 2 N4654
See also Some basic smiley faces (☹, ☺, ☻) are in Miscellaneous Symbols block Some body parts (e.g. ✌️; ⛹; etc) are in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Dingbat blocks Some heads and figures (e.g. 👦; 🛀; etc) are in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs and Transport and Map Symbols blocks Additional smiley faces (e.g. 🤐, 🤑, etc) are in Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs block
References