The Emoji Alphabet and The Language of Art
By Nikki Wordsmith
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The Emoji Alphabet: A Simple and Sensible System for a Universal Visual Language
1 Imagine a world where letters and words are more rounded, fun, meaningful and easy to learn based on the full circle of our senses – especially our visual sense.
2 Everybody in the world automatically understands the look, sound and sense of these images to letters and words.
3 English, made up of the 26 letters a-z, is the most communicated and shared language in the world. Therefore, from the standard 26 letters a to z ( 🍏 to 🦓 )we use a vocabulary of around 3000 words for everyday use.
These are the three driving principles of the world’s first Universal Visual Language and The Emoji Alphabet.
The Emoji Alphabet
One of the foundations of this new visual language system is The Emoji Alphabet.
Each of the 26 English letters gets its own emoji alliteratively mapped onto it.
See below for the official a-z English letter legend mapped and matched to an emoji with the same initial letter:
- a = apple 🍏
- b = bee 🐝
- c = cat 😸
- d = dog 🐶
- e = ear 👂
- f = frog 🐸
- h = house 🏠
- i = ice cream 🍦
- j = joker 🃏
- k = king 老]🤴
- l = love ❤️
- m = moon 🌛
- n = nuts 🥜
- o = ok 👌
- p = pig 🐷
- q = queen 👸
- r = rainbow 🌈
- s = sun 🌞
- t = tooth 🦷
- u = umbrella ☂️
- v = hand v sign ✌️
- w = whale 🐳
- x = X ❌
- Z = zebra 🦓
It is simply designed to be a supporting secondary bridging language for the 7,000 different languages that we currently all speak around the world.
It’s like a global handshake, a head nod and hum of agreement all rolled into one — simple, visual, and accessible language.
Since about 65% of us — according to the VARK model — think better with pictures, this taps into how our brains naturally loves images over text.
From the first handprints on cave walls to the intricate scripts of ancient civilizations, us humans have always sought to leave marks that speak.
Symbols preceded writing — abstract shapes, animal forms, and celestial signs conveyed emotion, ritual, and memory.
Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs formalized this impulse, turning image into language.
Across cultures, alphabets evolved, yet the symbolic urge persisted: runes, ideograms, pictographs.
These weren’t just tools — they were bridges between minds across time.
Whether carved in stone or encoded in pixels, our symbols carry stories, beliefs, and longing.
Communication is not just transmission — it’s communion, a shared breath between the seen and the felt.
Signs and symbols have long since fascinated me.
My undergraduate dissertation was on the Origin of Art with Professor Steve Mithen at The University of Reading in Berkshire, England.
(Mithen later came up with a brilliant music communication theory called The Singing Neanderthals. More on this later…)
During my student days, palaeontologist Richard Leakey brought out his book The Origin of Humankind (1994).
This was a key turning point from the “man the hunter” model and more towards cooperation, adaptability, intelligence and crucially consciousness and symbolic thought.
Being a young student in the 1990s in southern England there were lots of things to do as well as study, so I didn’t read the whole book then apart from the second chapter called The Language of Art.
In this chapter, Leakey shifts the focus from bones and stones to the birth of the human spirit and symbolism.
The Link to Language
The reason the title is “The Language of Art” is because Leakey believes art and spoken language are two sides of the same coin.
To create a painting of a “man-lion” (anthropomorphism), you must be able to hold abstract concepts in your head — a feat that is impossible without the symbolic structure that language provides.
He wrote: “Language is not merely a vocal act; it is a symphony of the senses – sight, sound, touch, and even the feel of the air, as we shape words, all woven together to create the rich tapestry of human expression.”
Fortunately for me, a year later, I was able to carry Richard Leakey’s ideas around with me for the rest of my life when a publishing house called Phoenix brought out a pocket book version.
To this day, these first 21 pages of The Origin of Humankind are never very far away from me.
It was the best 60p I ever spent.
Now where did I put that book? Ah here it is in my pocket.
🌛☂️😸🏠 🌛👌🌈👂 😸👌🌛🍦🥜🍇 🌞👌👌🥜…
Delve further into CHAPTER 2 The Language of Art
Read more about The Story of Communication from Cave Art to coding to The Emoji Alphabet setting the standard for a Universal Visual Language.
Invite your family and friends to guess The Emoji Alphabet
Please feel free to subscribe follow along on our creative journey. I am also regularly posting on Web 3.0 on Zora, another public cultural ledger for this The Emoji Alphabet project.
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