Firm calls for ‘emoji specialist’

ALONDON translation agency said on Tuesday that it is advertising for its first “emoji translator” to help meet the “challenges posed by the world’s fastestgrowing language”.

Based in the City of London financial district, Today Translations advertised on its website for a translator whose job will consist of interpreting the miniature images, from smiley faces to pizzas, beloved of smartphone users the world over.

“Emoji translation is itself an emerging field – but one dominated to date by software, which is often insensitive to the many cultural differences in usage and interpretation,” said the advert.

“We are therefore seeking an exceptional individual to provide the human touch needed where translation software is inadequate.”

Chief executive Jurga Zilinskiene said the company decided to create the freelance position after being approached by a client to translate a family diary from English into emoticons.

“We started looking into it and decided we had to do much more work to understand the culture of emojis across the globe,” she said.

The recruit will be required to write monthly reports on emoji trends and research cultural differences in usage, as well as carry out translations and work with 3,000 linguists who speak some 200 languages, according to the job posting.