Pathoglyph

Pathoglyphs, known archaically as emoticons, are a pictograph based language often used in complement with written languages. These glyphs take a variety of shapes though they’re main use is to communicate specific emotions by depicting certain facial features and hand gestures in a space that can fit within a single character. Some life forms may lack the necessary means of displaying emotions naturally so they sometimes use pathoglyphs to plainly communicate their current emotional state.

The term “pathoglyph” is a Merinian word, thought to have originated from their discovery of a repository of ancient emoticons. The intermingling of cultures have led to the Yeddites adopting the word for their own.