You Would Not Believe These Emojis.

Following a research of the mobile phone use by youths in the African continent, a young Nigerian American Ayoola Daramola has come out to develop emojis that better speaks the language of the people.

"We tried to create an African app, that actually has really strong images - this is Disney quality animation here," Ayoola Daramola 

His newly launched line of emojis - which sit in his app, Afroemojis - features men and women dressed in colourful African clothes, and local expressions in pidgin English, such as "Chai!" ("Wow!"), "Correct!" ("Great job!") and "No dulling!" ("Don't be slow!").

According to the US-based Pew Research Center, text messaging remains the most common activity for mobile phone users in Africa, and Mr Daramola says his Afrocentric emojis will fill a gap in the market by allowing users to express themselves using characters they can identify with, and everyday local phrases that mean more to them.


Guide to West African pidgin

•E make brain - It makes sense
•Abeg no vex - Please don't be annoyed
•Drop something - Tip some cash
•How market? - How is business?
•Oya shake body - Dance
•U Don See Alert? - Have you seen the bank alert?
•The parri don start? - Has the party started yet?
•Wasere - You did great
•Yawa don gas - We have a problem
•U dey crase? - Are you crazy?

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Impressed by the high adoption rate that mobile phones have enjoyed across the African continent, he wanted to create an app that responded to the rapidly changing way Africans are communicating with each other, both at home and abroad.
"This is basically 'send me an African-looking image', right? But I think the evolution of apps and cellphones is going to get a lot more localised.
"You're going to have African apps that are really localised, African-based, really really local to you - chatting applications, video-chat applications, even mobile money-sending apps," Mr Daramola says.