Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs

Block

Emoji

The block contains 637 emoji and has 312 standardized variants defined to specify emoji-style (U+FE0F VS16) or text presentation (U+FE0E VS15) for 156 base characters.

{{anchor|Skin tones}}Emoji modifiers

The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs contains a set of "Emoji modifiers" which are modifier characters intended to represent skin colour based on the Fitzpatrick scale (but conflating the two lightest skin types into one category):

: : : : :

These emoji modifiers can be used on emojis that represent people or body parts including the 55 human emojis in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictograph block.

In August 2014, Peter Edberg of Apple Inc. and Mark Davis of Google proposed implementing these "emoji modifiers" to provide better representation of "human diversity" in emoji characters. and, in June 2015, the proposal was adopted in Unicode version 8.0. This was the result of lobbying by Katrina Parrott, whose daughter came up with the idea after being unable to send emojis that looked like her.

To modify an emoji representing a human or body part, the emoji modifier must be placed immediately after that emoji. When the emoji modifier is applied to an emoji, the emoji-style variant selectior (U+FE0F) should be omitted because the emoji modifier automatically implies emoji-style presentation.

Table of emoji with modifiers

The following table shows the full combinations of each of the five modifiers with all the "human emoji" characters in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block. Each character should show in each of the five skin tones provided a suitable font is installed on the system and the rendering software is capable of handling modifier characters. Platforms without emoji modifier support may show as boxes.

Additional human emoji can be found in other Unicode blocks: Dingbats, Emoticons, Miscellaneous Symbols, Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs, Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A and Transport and Map Symbols.

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block:

References

References

1. "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard.
2. "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard.
3. "Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs Range 1F300-1F5FF (Unicode 15.0)". Unicode Consortium.
4. (2023-09-05). "UTR #51: Unicode Emoji". Unicode Consortium.
5. (2025-07-25). "UCD: Emoji Data for UTR #51". Unicode Consortium.
6. "UTS #51 Emoji Variation Sequences". The Unicode Consortium.
7. "Full Emoji Modifier Sequences: skin-tone". Unicode Consortium.
8. (3 August 2014). "L214/172 Proposed enhancements for emoji characters: background".
9. (27 August 2014). "L2/14-173r Variation selectors for Emoji skin tone".
10. (17 June 2015). "Unicode 8.0.0". Unicode Consortium.
11. (22 Dec 2020). "What Does It Mean To Have An Emoji Acquired By A Museum?". NPR.org.
12. (31 August 2022). "UTR #51-23: Unicode Emoji - 2.4 Diversity". Unicode Consortium.
13. Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names
14. Japanese translation of N3582 is available as [http://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n3621.pdf N3621]
15. Japanese translation of N3614 is available as [https://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n3620.pdf N3620]
16. See also [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2013/13207-emoji.html L2/13-207], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14054-emoji-style.pdf L2/14-054], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14063-emoji-sheet.pdf L2/14-063], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15051-A-text-vs.txt L2/15-051A], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15051-B-text-style.html L2/15-051B]
17. See also [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15198-varseq-text-emoji.pdf L2/15-198] and [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15275-more-var-seqs-for-text-vs-emoji.pdf L2/15-275]
18. See also [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14172r-emoji-enhancements.pdf L2/14-172R], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14174r-emoji-additions.pdf L2/14-174R], [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14275-emoji-ad-hoc-recs.pdf L2/14-275], and [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15025-n4654-additions.pdf L2/15-025]