In the latest episode of "What in the world is happening to the English language?" one author(?) has been translating famous stories in a language of emojis. The Wall Street Journal profiled this week London artist and publisher Joel Hale, who develops systems of picture-to-letter symbols for the entire alphabet and then rewrites classics such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty.
This new form of writing comes on the heels of this week's release of the Oxford Dictonary's "Word of the Year":
This new form of writing comes on the heels of this week's release of the Oxford Dictonary's "Word of the Year":
Yes, you read that correctly. I said, "word of the year."
I know, some of you structuralists and semoticians are already screaming through your computer screens at me, "But, but, but all written language is a collection of arbitrary symbols! This is just a new form of cultural text depicting visual image patterns and narrative operators!" While this is true, let's also remember that the language we already have--you know, the one whose letters and sounds have remained relatively consistent for hundreds of years--is already too difficult for many readers, particularly our young ones, as indicated by our national reading levels (more on this topic next week).
Hale's language becomes even more convoluted when we realize his process involves unstable image representations. His emojis vary according to genre. The article states, "Before starting his translations Mr. Hale reads the text several times and comes up with an A-Z key of images that suit the story. Emoji in translations of fairy tales include castles, diamonds and queens. Scary stories have a more menacing vocabulary: I is for insect and S is for scream." I know I'm a bit old-fashioned, but while it might make for a cutesy appearance on a page, this sounds like a reading nightmare.
Everyone understands that language evolves. The questions must be, however, "Is it evolving in a way that becomes more useful, more efficient, more accessible?" If it becomes more complicated, more arduous, more exclusive, it's hard to defend as a viable form of future language, and thus becomes an exercise in frivolous novelty (younger readers: look up the classic game show Concentration).
Here is Hale's version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
I know, some of you structuralists and semoticians are already screaming through your computer screens at me, "But, but, but all written language is a collection of arbitrary symbols! This is just a new form of cultural text depicting visual image patterns and narrative operators!" While this is true, let's also remember that the language we already have--you know, the one whose letters and sounds have remained relatively consistent for hundreds of years--is already too difficult for many readers, particularly our young ones, as indicated by our national reading levels (more on this topic next week).
Hale's language becomes even more convoluted when we realize his process involves unstable image representations. His emojis vary according to genre. The article states, "Before starting his translations Mr. Hale reads the text several times and comes up with an A-Z key of images that suit the story. Emoji in translations of fairy tales include castles, diamonds and queens. Scary stories have a more menacing vocabulary: I is for insect and S is for scream." I know I'm a bit old-fashioned, but while it might make for a cutesy appearance on a page, this sounds like a reading nightmare.
Everyone understands that language evolves. The questions must be, however, "Is it evolving in a way that becomes more useful, more efficient, more accessible?" If it becomes more complicated, more arduous, more exclusive, it's hard to defend as a viable form of future language, and thus becomes an exercise in frivolous novelty (younger readers: look up the classic game show Concentration).
Here is Hale's version of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: