With over 6 billion emojis sent on a daily basis, and over 90% of the world’s online community making regular use of them, emojis may be one of Japan’s greatest exports.

Emoji were created in 1998 by a 25-year-old employee of Japanese mobile-phone carrier NTT Docomo, who designed them for an internet messaging service. But it was Western players Apple and Google ...

In this Sept. 14, 2017, photo, Django Co. Ltd. Director Shigetaka Kurita, the Japanese creator of the first emoji, writes a pictograph during an interview at his office in Tokyo.

In keeping with other Japanese words, emoji can be used to refer to both the singular and the plural. A better translation might be “pictogram.” ...