2003年01月28日 火曜日
Electronic Emotions in Japanese
by Justin Hall
Technology
Most Western internet users use sideways punctuation to spell out emotions - :-)
Japanese internet users use more complicated, and nuanced emotion icons:
(>_<) - ouch!
(T_T) - crying
(^_^)V - v for victory!
This site has compiled Japanese Facemarks and provided interpretation. (From BoingBoing)
The author Takagi Hiroe here attributes the Japanese expressive emoticon style to double-byte computer characters. Double-byte characters are used by Japanese computer systems to display hiragana, katakana and kanji - letters/characters with more variety than the 26 letters of the roman alphabet. These double-byte characters have more potential to fit dense information in a small space (ie, Japanese emoticons use punctuation that's more advanced that the basic set of ;-,.: - they add use of of ^<>_!|).
Also, Takagi-san writes that manga and kanji are good training for developing and using these punctuation creations as well. Some of the examples cited here are deeply difficult to make with an ordinary English-keyboard - others are quite fun for anyone online! On a mobile phone or on the Internet. With my old J-Phone, if I write out かお and then push down, I can select the kanji for face, or a whole series of these emoticons preassigned by my phone provider.
Posted by Justin Hall at 2003年01月28日 01:58
Comments
I have always been particular to japanese 顔文字 because they seem to support a much larger range than the sideways smileys. They also take more effort to learn and remember, so I usually am too lazy to use them. But I like getting them in my emails. `(^_^=^_^)/ヨロシク
Here is a site with over 7000 <a href="http://www.kaomoji.com/kao/">http://www.kaomoji.com/kao/</a>
(-_-;)
What does this emoticon represent in Japan?
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angry
confused
laughing