I am not a linguist, though the study of languages and how people use them holds interest for me. One of the stories that I was told years ago about language has been repeated by me many times. It goes something like this. Hebrew is among the oldest of languages to use an alphabet for writing. Many say that it was the first language to use an alphabet. The word alphabet comes from the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, but there are similar languages in the region with similar names for letters, so which was first may be something that is lost to history. At any rate, Hebrew is an ancient language and its use of an alphabet stands in contrast to other languages of the region. Ancient Egyptian, for example, is a pictographic language. The written form is a series of pictures. It wasn’t not understood by modern scholars until the discovery, in 1799, of the Rosetta Stone. The stone has a decree by King Ptolemy V inscribed on it in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script and Ancient Greek. The stone was used to provide a key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The story is that Hebrew developed in contrast to Egyptian pictographs/hieroglyphs because of its focus on speaking about God. God is beyond the human ability to picture. Any picture that might be drawn by a human would fall short of the ultimate reality of God. An alphabetic language, then allows for the use of symbol and metaphor to point toward God. The attempts to talk about God have resulted in a variety of different names for God that are used in Hebrew Scriptures. The most sacred of these names, the one considered to be God’s personal name, is not pronounced. It is written with three consonants, one of which is repeated. When those four letters are encountered in reading Scripture, a tradition of saying a substitute word developed. So faithful readers pronounce the four letters “Adonai,” another Hebrew word meaning “master,” or “owner.” The word is in its plural form, like another name for God, Elohim, but the text regularly uses the singular form of verbs in combination with the plural name.

To avoid taking the name of God in vain, the Majorettes put the vowel marks for Adonai under the letters for God’s name to remind readers to pronounce Adonai regardless of the consonants in the text. To make matters more confusing, Adonai also appears as a name of God in Hebrew texts.

The story of language and the names of God is much more complex, but suffice it to say that Hebrew scholars found that an alphabetic language was more suitable for the expression of theological conversation than a pictographic language.

For millennia, we have written about God primarily in languages that use an alphabet and are capable of expressing complex concepts and using metaphor, simile and other ways to point beyond language to a wider reality.

However, I am beginning to wonder if English is quickly being transformed from an alphabetic language to a pictographic language. I’m not sure where it started, but for some time now I have noticed the increasing use of pictures in short messages, especially telephone text messages. It started with the use of parenthesis and colin to express either happy :) or sad :( emotions. I guess writing out the words was considered cumbersome back in the days when we used numeric keypads to enter alphabetic text. Soon we had coined a word for these combinations of symbols: emoticons. The emoticons began to be a part of smartphone keyboards and now the word used for a world of small pictures is “emoji.” Facebook is set to introduce a series of emoji alongside of their signature “like” button as a way of allowing users to express a variety of emotions.

There is a Hollywood film soon to be released that features the little symbols as characters. The misuse of emoji have landed a teenage boy in a police cell and prompted Vladimir Putin’s wrath in Russia.

For some commentators on technology and the evolving use of it in human communities, emoji represent an evolution in language. Perhaps emoji even represent an emerging international language that might even compete with English for global usage. For other writers, emoji are seen as the enemy of effective visual communication.

I suspect that these little symbols are neither good nor bad, but rather a phase in a larger development of communication that will lead humans to new forms of expression.

Right now, for the most part, emoji seem to be supplements to enhance writing rather than substitutes for words spelled out in letters. I think of them as similar to gestures that we use when speaking out loud. I will sometimes point in different directions, hold out my open hands, or even make a circle with my thumb and forefinger to add emphasis to words I am speaking out loud. Emoji don’t take the place of the written word, they enhance understanding by adding an emotional quality. They also seem to function as a kind of shorthand - a way to express an idea or emotion that employs fewer characters.

I remain unconvinced that emoji have enough sophistication to express all of the complex thoughts and ideas that humans want to communicate. There is no real grammar or syntax to the use of emoji at present. My son and I will exchange text messages using the menu of emoji on our phones. Some of these messages are sort of like visual lists. For example he might send me pictures of a present, a cake, a balloon and confetti - a group of images that bring to mind parties and celebrations. Or he will send a picture of an alligator, which might bring to mind the expression “up to my eyeballs in alligators,” meaning that he is very busy at the moment.

Often the pictures have no particular order. They seem to mostly be used to communicate nouns. Although we try, we often find that you have to insert words or assume verbs in order to make a sentence out of the little pictures.

I guess it remains to be seen whether a new visual language is emerging or whether we are experiencing a devolution to a more primitive form of communication.

For now, I plan to keep writing in words.

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