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It’s official: we’re getting a taco emoji

It’s official: we’re getting a taco emoji

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Burritos, hot dogs, and Early Dynastic Cuneiform, too

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Language evolves. And perhaps today's most quickly evolving language is emoji, more and more of which are added each year in response to how we use the quirky symbols and which new ones we want.

Today marks an incredible day in emoji's evolution: the release of Unicode 8, the next version of the standard behind emoji. And Unicode 8 just happens to contain support for one of the most requested images of all time, the taco. It's not clear why the taco is so in demand. Probably just because it's a really great format for food. There's a good taco place down the street from me, and I can imagine myself using a taco emoji all the time when asking people to go there. "Want to go out for [taco emoji]?" I'd ask. I think we all feel that way.

Google suggests that interest in a taco emoji has been increasing for years.

This day in emoji history will be second only to the day when the taco emoji is actually put inside our phones. For now, the taco is only real in an abstract sense. Eventually, maybe in iOS 10 or Android 5.3, we'll be gifted with a taco emoji that we can actually see and use.

There's actually even more good news in this Unicode update. Not only are we getting a taco emoji, we're also getting a burrito emoji and a hot dog emoji. Religious symbols and sports symbols are being added as well; there are 41 new emoji in total. On top of all of that, this update actually includes the diverse emoji that Apple implemented a few months ago — it kind of jumped the gun on that one — so we should start to see support for it elsewhere soon. Now that our calls have been answered, what do we ask Unicode for next?