The Hanmoji Handbook

Starred review from May 1, 2022
A visual manual employs digital-age symbols to introduce one of the world's oldest living forms of writing. Leveraging widely recognizable and pictographic emoticons, this innovative work appeals to humans' language instinct and innate playfulness, dismantling potential psychological barriers when approaching something that may feel difficult or inaccessible. The colorful and icon-filled design creates explicit connections between Hanzi--Chinese characters--and emoji, enticing readers to browse and explore together with the anthropomorphic porcine narrator, Jiji, whose profile shows the emoji representing his hanmoji name, Snout Snout. Comparing Hanzi with other logographic languages including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian, and Mayan, the contents inform and intrigue regardless of one's prior knowledge of the Chinese language. How might two tree emojis make the word forest? How many spoken language groups and written forms does Chinese currently have? (Answer: 10 and two, respectively) And what is a tonal language? Using crisp layouts, thoughtful descriptions and examples, and illustrated charts, this comprehensive primer entertains while explicating a high-context language family without overgeneralizing or oversimplifying. It also incorporates Chinese culture and philosophy and educates readers about the history and process of emoji creation, among other topics. Through their broad, comparative approach, the savvy creators also demonstrate the hybridity and constantly evolving nature of languages in general. Clever, complex, yet concise and fun: This guide promises to engage language learners and curious readers. (bibliography, index, image credits) (Nonfiction. 11-18)

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