What ꬮ means
It marks the “bbo” syllable inside a Gumuz word.
The broader Ethiopic script is linked to earlier South Arabian writing, though its exact ancestry is debated. Around the fourth century CE, it had become a vowel-marked syllabary: its signs represent consonant-and-vowel syllables.
A Gumuz New Testament published in 2003 is cited as an example of the extended characters in a 2009 Unicode proposal. The proposal says the community was already using these characters.
Why was ꬮ needed?
It gave Gumuz words a way to be spelled in Ethiopic script.
The proposal describes a practical need: some Gumuz language groups were moving toward Latin spelling while churches still published books in Ethiopic. Extra syllable signs gave those publications a stable way to spell Gumuz words. This extension is for Gumuz, not general Amharic spelling; readers familiar only with Latin-script Gumuz may expect a different written form.
A specialized writing character: precise in Gumuz text and unfamiliar outside that context.
Do not substitute ቦ; it is a different syllable in the standard Ethiopic set.
Part of the collection
Who writes ꬮ
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsꬮ spells a syllable in the word; read it with the surrounding Gumuz text.
Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
2Why is ꬮ a box?
A missing-glyph box means the active font cannot draw ꬮ; the character in the text may still be intact. Use a font with Ethiopic Extended-A coverage.
Can I use ꬮ in Amharic?
Usually no. ꬮ belongs to the Gumuz spelling extension; use it in Amharic only if the specific source text calls for that character.
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How to type or find ꬮ
- Search it as
- bbo · gumuz · gumaz · guk · geez · fidel
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ꬮ\AB2ECodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.