New Emojis Coming to Your Phone in 2019

A yawn, a juice box, an adhesive bandage, and a sloth are just a few of the new emojis coming to your phone that your homeschool family may inspire you to text to your friend or spouse in 2019.

The Unicode Consortium and the Unicode Standard announced the full list in early February of the 59 new emojis that will compile the Emoji 12.0 release in 2019. With variants for gender and skin tone taken into consideration, the official total of new emojis in the 2019 set will be 230.

“You'd think one day we would run out of things to make tiny pictures of, but with version 12.0 we're now up to 3,053 total glyphs,” wrote Ars Technica writer Ron Amadeo. “I hope your platform has a search function.”

You won’t be seeing the latest emojis for a while, however, as last week’s announcement simply alerts developers to begin adding the emojis to operating systems, apps, and web platforms throughout the year. In previous years, new emojis began showing up on mobile phones in the months of September and October.

With new emojis featuring wheel chairs, hearing aids, mechanical arms and legs, walking canes, and guide dogs, this year’s release has a major emphasis on people with disabilities.

“In the sixth major emoji update since 2014, much of the low-hanging fruit has been addressed prior to this release. Skin tone support was added to the Unicode Standard in 2015, increased representation of women in 2016, gender inclusive people in 2017, and hair color additions in 2018,” wrote Jeremy Burge, the Editor in Chief at Emojipedia. “2019 expands the scope of people that can be represented, including people with various disabilities.”

In addition to guide dogs, new animals in the 2019 set include an orangutan, an otter, a skunk, a flamingo, and a sloth (which will surely come in handy when you’re trying to rush out the door but your children appear to be moving in slow-motion). New food-related items include waffles, onions, and butter, while new hobby representations include a yo-yo, diving mask, ballet shoes, and a banjo.

While we now know the full list of 2019 emojis, one big question remains: will any of the new images be able to crack our list of the most-used emojis of homeschoolers?

Want to have some fun with emojis? Put your knowledge to the test and take our Children’s Song Emoji Quiz! How many can you and your child get together?