The organization responsible for publishing the Unicode Standard says that it’s pushing back the release of Unicode 14.0 by six months due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In a nutshell, a lot of volunteer time goes into producing an updated standard, and many volunteers have a lot of other things on their minds at the moment.

That means Unicode 14.0 won’t be finalized until September, 2021 rather than March, 2021 as originally planned.

And one result of pushing back the release date is that there will probably be no new emoji next year.

Update 7/27/2020: Unicode 14 is still delayed, but a new Emoji 13.1 release will tide us over with new Emoji coming in 2021 after all.

Unicode is the system that allows computers, phones, and other devices to display text and other characters in a consistent fashion — and that includes emoji.

It takes a while for phone makers to incorporate newly approved emoji into mobile operating systems. So new characters introduced in Emoji 13.0 this March will likely start to arrive this fall. But any new emoji finalized in late 2021 aren’t likely to show up on mobile devices until early in 2022.

That said, the Unicode Consortium is considering the possibility of an Emoji 13.1 release that would include some updated emoji sequences that use existing characters — for example an Emoji 13.0 sequences is a black cat, which combines a cat emoji and a black square to create something new(ish).

So there’s that.

In the meantime, you can always check out Unicode website to find out more about emoji. Or you can just curse silently every time you accidentally hit the emoji key on your smartphone keyboard when you meant to hit the spacebar, like the rest of us.

via The Verge and Emojipedia

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7 replies on “Unicode Consortium says there will be no new emoji in 2021 (Updated)”

  1. What You think about language for emoji?

    https://jetykiet.herokuapp.com/ Tag Language

    Minimalist language of terms, in which words may have any order. Each phraseological relationship, word, information shall contain a number of labels (terms, particulars) that define the relationship of a word to other words. Each word may be an expression of a different word. A word can have any form: graphic sign, emoticon, natural language inscription. Words do not change. Each word can be a noun, a term (e.g. an adjective, a question) or a verb.

    1. …I’m not sure which problems this “label language” solves, if any. I suppose it might help in machine communication or as an intermediary step in machine translation…maybe.
      I am, however, expecting a constructed language based on emoji to appear, if one hasn’t already. After all, one world, no borders, one race the human race, right? So for the sake of hypercapitalist global homogenization, a pictograph language would seem like an ideal thing to teach you so you can communicate with…and be forced to compete with…everyone in every country on earth.
      Advertisers will love the idea, since it would mean a billboard that could be written one and read everywhere. That’s why it’ll happen, and that’s why it’ll suck, because advertisers ruin everything.

      1. Trouble with emoticones are not ambiguity of the message. Simple example send a emoticon.
        shark man eat
        Tell me shark eat man
        or man eat shark?

        1. example in emoji:
          🦈 🎂 👨

          —-
          The only problem so far is that it has no dictionary. It’s just grammar rules.

          But you can make a dictionary yourself.

          There’s another language with a dictionary called Bliss see. It’s very complex and unfortunately more difficult to learn.

          https://www.blissymbolics.org/

    2. Why not? Humanity tried that before with great success.

      However, we live in a fast lane now, so if it’s of any use, it’ll go from hieroglyphs to Coptic in no time.

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