There are known English readings of smileys. For example:  
`:-)` is read as simply "smiley" according to Siri.  
Sometimes Siri also calls it "colon hyphen close parenthesis".

But what about reading smileys in Japanese?  
For example, I suppose that `:-)` would be "nikoniko" (just a wild guess)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-23T13:05:59.557
89015
2021-08-24T00:33:55.670
2021-08-23T15:55:08.350
43676
36423
question
readings symbols
Reading smileys
`:-)` is not an universal symbol. Most Japanese people don't even notice it's
a face. Naturally, there is no established way of reading it in Japanese.

The generic term to refer to faces using characters is _emoticon_ or _smiley_
in English, and 顔文字 ( _kaomoji_ , literally "face character") in Japanese. See
[this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon#Japanese_style).

IMEs often have "readings" for these kaomoji's (see [this
page](http://www.hyou.net/a/ime-kaomoji.shtml) for examples), but these are
merely input aids, and do not mean people read these out loud the same way. I
think almost no one will read `(>_<)` as いたい.

A smiling emoji () is sometimes referred to as ニコニコマーク or ニコちゃんマーク, but it's
rarely read out loud like this in practice, either.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-24T00:33:55.670
89024
2021-08-24T00:33:55.670
5010
89015
answer