A face with bags under the eyes, a paint splatter and a human fingerprint are some of the new emoji coming to smartphones this fall.
The new batch – officially called Emoji 16.0 – also includes a root vegetable, a leafless tree, a harp, a shovel and a special flag.
Like the English flag, this new emoji has a white background with a red St. George’s Cross.
But the upper left corner (also called the ‘canton’) is colored red and contains two yellow lions.
Do you know which country it officially represents?
The new emojis should start appearing on devices this fall, as long as they’re officially approved
It is the flag of Sark, one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, France.
While Sark may seem like a random choice for a flag emoji, the island’s geographical neighbours – Jersey and Guernsey – already have one.
According to Emojipedia, which is part of the Unicode Consortium, the central bank of all approved emoji, these eight new emoji are concept candidates.
That means they’ll have to be officially approved in September before appearing on devices starting in October.
“We at Emojipedia have released our traditional sample designs for all new emoji candidates,” said Keith Broni, editor-in-chief of Emojipedia.
“They have not yet been formally approved by Unicode and are therefore subject to change between now and the planned approval date of September 10, 2024.”
The addition of Flag for Sark is surprising, because as the Unicode Consortium itself admits, the Consortium already decided in March 2022 not to add any new flag emoji.
While Sark may seem like a random choice for a flag emoji, the island’s geographical neighbours – Jersey and Guernsey – already have their own
Sark is part of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, France
Emojipedia at the time noted the “transience” of many pride flags and the “challenges that come with assigning certain identities and excluding others.”
Broni now says, “This policy remains in effect, although Unicode did indicate at the time this policy was announced that additional national/regional flags could emerge in the future.”
Tech giants like Samsung, Apple and Meta are applying stylized versions of the new emoji designs to their own operating systems.
In other words, these emojis will likely look a little different when they’re available across operating systems and apps.
But Emojipedia says it has “already gained insight” into how these emojis might be displayed on Android devices.
If you own a Samsung device, you’ll likely get them first – in October – as part of the Korean company’s One UI update.
Google devices and apps will get them next (from October or November), followed by Meta’s WhatsApp (January or February).
The actual designs from vendors will differ from those of major vendors, though Emojipedia has “already gotten some insight” into how these emojis might look on Android devices (see image)
Assuming all eight of these emojis are approved, Emoji 16.0 will bring the total number of emojis broadly supported across multiple platforms to 3,790
Apple will make them available in its apps starting in March or April as part of a later update to the upcoming iOS 18 operating system.
Finally, starting next summer, Meta’s Facebook will be up (including Messenger), followed by Microsoft devices via a Windows 11 update (until fall 2025).
With just eight emojis, this new collection of emoji candidates for approval is the shortest list of emoji candidates in history.
The second lowest number of emoji recommendations – 31 – was Emoji 15.0 in September 2022.
Assuming all eight emojis are approved, Emoji 16.0 brings the total number of emojis widely supported across multiple platforms to 3,790.
‘Pregnant man’ added to emoji list 14.0
Two emojis — “pregnant man” and a gender-neutral “pregnant person” — were among the emojis that made the list of 14.0 approved emojis coming to devices in 2021 and 2022.
The pregnant man and the pregnant woman acknowledge that “pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people,” according to Emojipedia, a voting member of the Unicode Consortium.
According to Emojipedia, men get pregnant in both real life and fiction, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1994 film “Junior.”
The ‘pregnant man’ and ‘pregnant person’ emoji can also be used as a ‘funny way to represent a food baby, a very full stomach caused by eating a large meal’
Guidelines to use the term “pregnant person” instead of “pregnant woman” – issued by the British Medical Association in 2017, in a bid to recognise trans and non-binary people – were at the time called “an insult to women”.
Jane Solomon, Emojipedia’s “senior emoji lexicographer,” sketched the new emoji in a blog post titled ‘Why is there a pregnant man emoji?’
“The new pregnancy options can be used for representation by trans men, non-binary people, or women with short hair – although the use of these emojis is of course not limited to these groups,” she said.
“Men can be pregnant. This is true in the real world (e.g. trans men) and in fictional universes (e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger in [1994 film] “Junior”.
‘People of any gender can be pregnant too. Now there are emojis to represent this.’
For now, Unicode is retaining the more conventional “pregnant woman” emoji, which has been around since 2016.