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Private company

Zlango

Israeli mobile application

Lango, originally known as Zlango, was an icon-based "language" (actually a logographic writing system) built for web and mobile messaging. Zlango Ltd., the Israeli company which created and owned Zlango, released a Java and Brew application for mobile phones that used the Zlango icon language to create a new form of SMS, called ZMS, using Zlango's icons instead of words.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2004Founded1

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Lango, originally known as Zlango, was an icon-based "language" (actually a logographic writing system) built for web and mobile messaging. Zlango Ltd., the Israeli company which created and owned Zlango, released a Java and Brew application for mobile phones that used the Zlango icon language to create a new form of SMS, called ZMS, using Zlango's icons instead of words.2

The story

Zlango was created in 2004 by Yoav Lorch, an author and playwright, as an attempt to shorten text messages. When he found that abbreviated texts only removed 20% of letters, he decided to enter the field of pictographic language. The name Zlango is a combination of lingo, slang, and language, with the letter Z as homage to Esperanto creator L. L. Zamenhof. In February 2007, Zlango Ltd. announced that it raised $12 million from the VCs Benchmark and Accel. Zlango Ltd. was based in Tel Aviv and had around 40 employees at its peak. The company ceased to operate in 2014.

From Wikipedia’s article on Lango (app), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 2004Founded Founded1

Sources

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