A Maltese researcher has discovered a previously unknown emoji, in what the scientific community is calling an amazing breakthrough.
Daniela Busuttil made the discovery while working at the Max Planck Institute Of Advanced Emojology in Dresden, Germany.
New emojis are created in laboratories around the world by splicing together two or more of the 43 base symbols of the periodic table of emojis, which, prior to Busuttil’s discovery, had not changed in 10 years.
“My colleagues and I were in the process of creating emojis for feelings that don’t have a word for them in English,” said Busuttil, who wrote her Phd. on the poop emoji.
“I was assigned with formulating an emoji for saudade, a Portuguese word that roughly translates as a deep, emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves and that might never return. Quite a challenge.
“I immediately dismissed the idea of simply combining a sad face with the ‘heart eyes’ face, as they aren’t sufficient to convey the full emotional implications of saudade. I needed a base emoji that represented nostalgia with a tinge of melancholy. But it wasn’t in the periodic table. How was that possible? There had to be a missing link.”
While her fellow scientists laughed at the suggestion that there might be an as-yet undiscovered emoji in the periodic table, Busuttil persevered.
“After several all-nighters spent trawling the web, even delving as far as 4chan, I finally found what I was looking for – a yellow face with an expression that was somewhere between nostalgic and wistful.”
Busuttil is now planning to present the new emoji at a symposium in Vienna, after which it will be mass produced in a factory in Bangladesh like all other emojis.
Busuttil was congratulated by Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, while Lovin Malta praised her contribution to emojis and declared her the most influential Maltese person who ever lived.
“Even more than Sarah Zerafa,” Lovin Malta CEO Chris Peregin said.
