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In recent years Emoji (Images which are treated as text by computers, represented in the extended unicode range) have entered the common parlance of the English language.

But now I'm confused

According to Wikipedia it's a Japanese word, appropriated into English, so it doesn't follow the typical pluralisation rules of Latin-rooted words (for instance, the plural of radius is radii), so we can't use 'emojus' as a singular.

Is 'Emoji' singular, plural or both? If it's only one, what is the other form?

AJFaraday
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  • Wiktionary says emoji/emojis. – Cathy Gartaganis May 19 '16 at 09:09
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    In Japanese, the plural version of emoji is emoji. In written English, emoji or emojis is considered an acceptable pluralization of the word emoji. While words are not given plural forms in Japanese, this may or may not be observed when borrowing a Japanese word such as emoji, to use in English. http://emojipedia.org/faq/ – MorganFR May 19 '16 at 09:16
  • @MorganFR Isn't emoji (singular) with a short I and emoji (plural) with a long I? (just like cacti) – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963 May 19 '16 at 09:19
  • Not really, since it's a Japanese word, it doesn't follow that rule. It's more like "Pokémon" for instance, where the singular and plural are exactly the same. – MorganFR May 19 '16 at 09:20
  • @MorganFR there are a number of English words that are the same in plural and singular forms, too. Like "sheep". – AJFaraday May 19 '16 at 09:28
  • That word parlance... I don't think it means what you think it means. Emojis, by definition, will never enter parlance. Also, I'm not sure why you'd point out how common emojis have become only to follow it up with an explanation of what an emoji is. Everybody knows what it is. That's what "common" means. – RegDwigнt May 19 '16 at 09:54
  • Great.. so this got marked as a duplicate of a duplicate instead of the original question down the chain. Love it...... – Insane May 19 '16 at 10:49
  • @insane those look like a separate question anyway. Oh well. – AJFaraday May 19 '16 at 11:04
  • @RegDwigнt the word emoji has entered the common parlance. Emojis themselves... Well, they're rarely spoken. – AJFaraday May 19 '16 at 11:04

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