FRESH IDEAS: Emojis as the new lingua franca

“English, generally thought of as the ‘world language,’ is only used by one in five people on Earth. But — sketchy though the metrics are — the evidence suggests that over 90 percent of the world’s internet users make use of emojis on social media; and 80 percent of all adults (it’ll be higher for teenagers) regularly use emojis in messages. That cry-laughing emoji is legible from Seattle to Saigon.”