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Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript. Sam Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Sam. Neil And I'm Neil. Sam It's nice to see you, Neil, [smiley face], [high five], [fist bump]! Neil What's this, Sam? Are you saying hello with… emojis?! Sam Yes, I am! In this programme, we're entering the world of emojis - the small characters people use to show emotions in texts and emails. Do you have a favourite emoji, Neil? Mine's the [crying tears of laughter] emoji. Neil I like the [smiling face with hearts] one, and with over three thousand emojis to choose from, there's one for every occasion. It's one of the reasons why emojis have become so popular over the last 20 years - they let people put back some of the human emotion that's missing in written texts and emails. Sam We'll be finding out more about emojis, and learning some related vocabulary, soon… but first I have a question for you, Neil. It's about the word 'emoji' itself, which was invented in 1999 in Japan for the first internet-enabled mobile phones. The name, 'emoji', comes from the combination two Japanese words, but which words? Is the word 'emoji' a combination of: a) face and emotion? picture and character? or c) message and image? Neil I'll say it's a) face and emotion. Sam OK, Neil. We'll find out if your answer gets a [thumbs up] at the end of the programme. When we talk with someone face to face, we use physical gestures like smiling, laughing or nodding to show the other person how we feel. But these gestures get lost in written communication. Neil That's where emojis come in - they add feeling and emotion to online messages. But not everyone is an emoji fan. Some people believe that carefully chosen words are the best way of expressing yourself, and that emojis are affecting our ability to put feelings into words. Sam Here's cognitive linguist, Professor Vyv Evans, author of a book about the language of emojis, explaining more to BBC Radio 4's, Word of Mouth. Professor Vyv Evans