- The unusual flag features a red cross of St. George and yellow lions in the corner
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A face with bags under the eyes, splashes of paint and a human fingerprint are among the new emoticons coming to smartphones starting this fall.
The new batch – officially called Emoji 16.0 – also includes a root vegetable, a leafless tree, a harp, a shovel and an unusual flag.
Like the English flag, this new emoticon has a white background covered with a red cross of St. George.
But the upper left corner (known as the “canton”) is shaded red and contains two yellow lions.
So do you know which country it officially represents?
It is the flag of Sark, part of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, France.
While Sark may seem like a random choice for a flag emoji, the island’s geographical neighbors – Jersey and Guernsey – already have their own.
Emojipedia — which is part of the Unicode Consortium, the central bank of all approved emoji — says the eight new emoji are draft candidates.
This means they will have to be officially approved in September before they start appearing on devices from October.
“We here at Emojipedia have released our traditional sample designs for all new emoji candidates,” said Keith Broni, Editor-in-Chief of Emojipedia.
“They are not yet formally approved by Unicode and therefore may change between now and the planned approval date of September 10, 2024.”
The inclusion of the Flag for Sark is a surprise since, as the Unicode Consortium admits, it stopped including any new flag emoji in March 2022.
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At the time, Emojipedia cited the “transient nature” of many pride flags and “challenges that include some identities while excluding others.”
Broni now says: ‘This policy remains in place, although at the time this policy was announced, Unicode was highlighting how additional national/regional flags might arise.’
Tech giants like Samsung, Apple, and Meta are applying stylized versions of the new emoji designs to their own operating systems.
In other words, these emoticons will probably look a little different when they are released for operating systems and apps.
However, Emojipedia said it has “already gained some insight” into how these emojis might appear on Android devices.
If you have a Samsung device, you’ll likely get them first – in October – as part of the Korean firm’s One UI update.
Google devices and apps will get them next (from October or November), followed by Meta’s WhatsApp (January or February).
Apple will release them in its apps starting in March or April as part of a later update to its upcoming iOS 18 operating system.
Meta’s Facebook (including Messenger) will be the last from next summer, followed by Microsoft devices via the Windows 11 update (until autumn 2025).
With only eight emojis, this new collection is the shortest list of emoji candidates in history to be approved.
The next lowest number of emoji recommendations – 31 – was Emoji 15.0 in September 2022.
Assuming all eight are approved, Emoji 16.0 will bring the total number of emojis that are widely supported across platforms to 3,790.