person kneeling: medium skin tone
Unicode: 1F9CE 1F3FD
Description
A person kneeling, facing left, with a medium skin tone, symbolizing deep respect, prayer, or humility.
Group:
People & Body > person-activity
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Typically represents humility, gratitude, respect, submission, worship, or being in a state of prayer or contemplation.
Backstory
The 'person kneeling' emoji (U+1F9CE) was approved as part of Unicode 12.0 in 2019 and added to Emoji 12.0. The skin tone modifier (U+1F3FD for medium skin tone) allows for greater representation. It represents a universal human gesture of kneeling for various reasons.
Usage Examples
- Expressing deep gratitude: 'I'm so thankful for your help 🙏🏾'
- Indicating prayer: 'Praying for you 🙏🏾'
- Showing respect or humility: 'I humbly request your assistance 🙏🏾'
- Sports context (less common for this specific emoji, but possible): 'What a game! 🙏🏾'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Often associated with prayer, worship, or showing extreme gratitude and humility, sometimes also seen in sports for victory or defeat.
East Asian culture:
Can be seen as a gesture of deep respect, apology, or traditional forms of greeting and supplication, such as 'dogeza' in Japan, though the emoji itself does not explicitly represent this specific gesture.