Comparison of Hieroglyphs and Digital Glyphs

Student’s Name
Instructor’s Name
Course
Date
Comparison of Hieroglyphs and Digital Glyphs
In recent years, the rampant use of Emojis in digital communication has raised the question of whether Emojis represent the revival of ancient hieroglyphs. Evian (p.390) indicates that there exist similarities between ancient hieroglyphs and digital glyphs since both rely on the use of pictograms to convey a message. This paper focuses on comparing ancient hieroglyphs and digital glyphs to establish whether, indeed, Emojis represent a revival of ancient hieroglyphs
Ancient hieroglyphs involve a system of writing involving the use of pictures rather than words to communicate (Pathak and Bansal, p.253). The same trend has appeared in modern-day digital communication where people are using Emojis to communicate. Emojis are pictures that are used in digital communication (p.255).In this sense, they can be referred to as digital glyphs because glyphs are pictures that convey a non-verbal message (p.254). As such, both ancient hieroglyphs and digital glyphs use pictures to relay non-verbal information.
However, ancient hieroglyphs were used as a formal form of communication. Pathak and Bansal (p.253) indicate that ancient hieroglyphs were used by priests, the royal family, and government officials for use in recording religious, sacred, and royal documents. Emojis or more generally, digital glyphs lack the formality that was accorded to ancient hieroglyphs. According to Ananthakrishnan and Si...