When was "emoji" first used?
Emoji is a small digital image or icon used in electronic communication. It is also mentioned as a standardized emoticon (emotion + icon) but emojis are usually depicted as pictographs and emoticons are depicted as characters.
Etymology of emoji:
From Japanese 絵文字 emoji (emoji, emoticon), from 絵 e (picture) + 文字 moji (character) [Wiktionary]
Wikipedia mentions the creation year of the first emoji:
The first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, who was part of the team working on NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile internet platform.
But I'm asking when the term "emoji" first used in English language? When it entered technical jargon, did it enter English also? Or did it enter after it was used in Japan for a while?
♥
The OED has the first use in English of the word emoji in 1997, but I found use of the word in the Latin alphabet in 1991.
Here's part of a 1991 comp.human-factors Usenet post by Don Norman (author of The Design of Everyday Things):
But who is Yukio Ota?
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The University of california library lists:
1. Japanese signs / Yukio Ota, Osami Sakano, Miwako Ito [editor in charge].
Tokyo : Process Architecture Pub. Co., 1983.
2. Ota, Yukio.
History of ancient China / Ota Yukio, Utsugi Akira, Hori Toshikazu. Tokyo
: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies. 1974.
3. Ota, Yukio, 1939-
Pictogram design / Yukio Ota = Pikutoguramu "emoji" dezain
Shohan. Tokyo, Japan : Kashiwashobo, 1987.(The references are only at UCLA and Berkeley, so I can't look at them.)
Tell us more.
Here's the book title at WorldCat:
Pictogram design / Yukio Ota = ピクトグラム「絵文字」デザイン /
Pictogram design / Yukio Ota = Pikutoguramu "emoji" dezain
Author: 太田幸夫, 1939- 太田幸夫. 太田幸夫, ; Yukio Ōta
Publisher: 柏書房, Tokyo, Japan : Kashiwashobo, 1987.
Edition/Format: Book : English : Shohan
It looks like Pikutoguramu "emoji" dezain in the title is just a Latinised version of ピクトグラム「絵文字」デザイン /, the English being "Pictogram design". But it may be worth checking the book as it seems to be in English.
And I'm not sure if listing a book title in an English 1991 Usenet post counts as use in English, but it shows the term was in use at least in 1991 (and possibly back to 1987).