The speak no evil monkey, called Iwazaru (Japanese for “say not”), one of the Three Wise Monkeys. Depicted as the brown ? Monkey Face with hands covering its mouth.
The Three Wise Monkeys represent the proverb see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, frequently interpreted as a call for discretion or willful ignorance.
Often used as a playful way to convey I can’t believe what I just said!, express a mischievous Oops!, or communicate a secret-keeping I won’t say a word. May be used to similar effect as ? Face With Hand Over Mouth or ? Zipper Mouth.
See also ? See-No-Evil Monkey and ? Hear-No-Evil Monkey.
This emoji is considered racist in some contexts, particularly when used to disparage, insult, and abuse people with dark skin, especially Black people.
Speak-No-Evil Monkey was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.
U+1F64A
? Speak-no-evil monkey