Bernlef, the association for Frisian students in Groningen, is looking into ways to have the Frisian flag added as an emoji on smartphones.
The Leeuwarder Courant reports that the board of the student association, which has existed since 1925, has submitted a letter to the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) with their reasoning for adding the Frisian flag to the emoji collection.
Teunia Stilma, a member of the board of the Groningen student association, told the Leeuwarder Courant that students feel like their chats with their fellow Frisians are missing something without the flag, which features white and blue stripes and red lily pads.
The UTC makes decisions about character coding and writing systems in digital communication, and they have informed the Bernlef board that they will take the request into consideration.
As a rule, the 277 flags included in the emoji lexicon represent countries rather than provinces or separatist and autonomous regions. The only exceptions as of now are the European Union flag, the United Nations flag, the Jolly Roger pirate flag (skull and crossbones), the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag, a white flag, a black flag, a crossed flag, a red pennant flag and a chequered flag.
In recent years, petitions and editorials have been posted calling for other flags to be added to the list, including Pan African, Tamil Eelam (from Sri Lanka), Northern Ireland, the Soviet Union, an Aboriginal flag, an Assyrian flag and an Orom (Ethiopian, Kenyan and Somali ethnic group) flag.
Actually, there are already 3 existing regional flags: England, Wales, Scotland.
Many other European regions have applied unsuccessfully before, including Bretagne, Basque country, Catalonia.
This application will not go through unless they get support from the main platforms like Google, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft.