This year's crop of emojis has been finalized by the Unicode Consortium. More than 50 have been approved, and when variations for skin tone and gender are accounted for, there are 230 new ones for 2019, bringing the overall total to 3,053.

As usual, while the standard versions are agreed, providers such as Apple, Google and Microsoft will create their own artwork to represent the new additions.

The additions this year have an inclusivity theme, with emojis representing deaf people, blind people, people in wheelchairs, and those with prosthetic limbs. As is becoming more usual in emojis, the additions come in three genders (male, female, and genderless) and five skin tones. There's an ear with a hearing aid, distinct emojis for people in motorized and unmotorized wheelchairs, prosthetic arms and legs, both guide dogs and service dogs, and people with a cane as used by blind people.

Another group of new emojis designed to make things more inclusive are to the couples and families emojis. The new version will mean users can choose the race and gender of both people when choosing an emoji that features a couple. Skin color was first introduced in emojis in 2015, but users were limited to heterosexual emojis for couples, and could only select couples with the same skin tone.

So far, the changes all seem rational, but in the further reaches of the additions it's back to the usual what? and why? of new emojis. Alongside the guide dogs, a range of more unusual animals make the mix, including a flamingo, sloth, otter, orangutan, and skunk. I can't say the lack of a flamingo emoji has so far been a real drawback, but maybe I just lead too sheltered a life. I can imagine using the orangutan, though:

The additions to the food emojis seem rather fewer than usual, but include butter, garlic, onion, oyster, waffle, falafel, mate tea, and a cube of ice. Other additions include a diving mask, safety vest, sari, ballet shoes, axe, drop of blood, stethoscope, and adhesive bandage. Heterodox and fairy chess symbols have also been added.

One of the most frequently requested new emojis, according to the Unicode Consortium, was for a white heart. This joins the black and yellow hearts already added. Windows users already had a white heart emoji.

More Information

Unicode List Of New Emojis

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