What ꬨ means
It is a Gumuz syllable sign, not a reaction emoji. Unicode’s label “Bba” identifies the character; its doubled b distinguishes the name but does not tell you how to pronounce the sign.
ꬨ belongs to a later extension of Ethiopic writing; early evidence for the broader tradition includes pseudo-Sabaean inscriptions from the 8th/7th centuries BCE. By the 4th century, Ethiopic had become an abugida, a system where consonant signs change to show vowels. A Unicode proposal for the Gumuz additions cites a Gumuz New Testament from 2003.
What was ꬨ made for?
The extension adds signs for the languages Gumuz, Gamo-Gofa-Dawro, and Basketo. The proposal also addressed reproducing existing Ethiopic books digitally; ꬨ belongs to its Gumuz group.
A Latin alphabet for Gumuz was approved in Ethiopia in 2007. Ethiopic also appears in church publications and older books, where faithful digital text preserves the script used in those editions.
Ethiopic runs left to right. Neighboring syllable signs stay text and form words according to Gumuz spelling rather than merging into a pictograph.
Why does ꬨ show as a square?
The font being used lacks this glyph. A font with Ethiopic Extended-A coverage can display ꬨ; a font without that character may show a missing-glyph square.
Language-specific writing; its tone depends on the surrounding words.
Sent alone, it can look like a stray glyph; read it in its language context.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does ꬨ show as a square?
The square is a missing-glyph placeholder: the font cannot display ꬨ. Use a font with Ethiopic Extended-A coverage; changing keyboards will not fix missing font support.
How to type ꬨ
ꬨ\AB28Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.