We designed and developed Australia's First Indigemoji app that share the language of the Arrernte Indigemoji's.

Indigemoji is a collective of artists, linguists, creative technologists and young people who first came together in 2018 to create an Arrernte set of emoji reflecting the traditional language of Mparntwe/Tyuretye in Central Australia.

Indigemoji began in early 2018 with a collaboration between Joel Liddle and Caddie Brain. They had met a few years earlier when Caddie attended the Arrernte beginners language course at the Alice Springs Language Centre, where Joel was an Arrernte language teacher. 

This project came at a critical time. Many remote communities had just received internet access and everyone now had a mobile phone.

Creative producer Caddie Brain, had been wanting to build a set Indigenous language emojis, quickly contacted Joel and the pair arranged to meet. They made a plan – to produce Australia’s first set of Indigenous language emojis. 

Joel was concerned that Indigenous languages were under threat as phones provided English language interfaces. This meant that people had more exposure to English and less to their first language. This was placing languages in the region under threat.