You can liven up your cellphone/mobile phone messages and send Web messages and E-cards with Zlango icons (zlango.com/icons) [EDIT (6//6/10): dead link] (note: includes a few off-color terms) (via TechCrunch).
Icons
Zlango currently has over 200 icons (219, including at least four repeats I noticed) on their site in eight categories:
- People: 25 icons
- Actions: 43
- Places: 21
- Feel: 26
- Time: 22
- Language: 20
- Fun: 25
- Descriptions: 37
Zlango is not an international language, of course. It has no grammar and favors languages like English that mostly use word order instead of morphology (word changes and affixes) for grammar.
Observations
- Why are “beach” and “army” considered types of buildings like “cafe” and “pub”?
- The hungry bird chick looks more like “hungry” than “want.”
- Flying Superman doesn’t make me think “can.”
- “Please” looks like “pray.”
- A timer bomb about to explode doesn’t really work for “soon” when it’s a good thing about to happen.
- Would everyone get “beautiful” from a picture of a swan (presumably from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling” who was really a swan-to-be)?
- Amusingly, it’s an Israeli company, but “food” is a hot dog and “restaurant” is a hot-dog place (perhaps it’s a kosher hot dog from beef).
Videos on Zlango’s Youtube page
You might also want to look into psychologist David Premack’s work with chimpanzees and plastic tokens to create simple communication.