What ᎆ means
It writes one Gurage syllable, transliterated “bwee.” That Latin spelling represents the syllable, not a complete word; the word around it supplies the meaning.
The earliest printed example of the expanded Chaha set that includes ᎆ is dated to 1966. Sahle Selassie Berhane Mariam and Wolf Leslau developed the added signs to write Gurage sounds that the established Ethiopic syllable set could not represent, extending the older writing tradition associated with Geʽez. This printed use predates Unicode: Unicode encoded an existing spelling practice rather than creating the syllable.
Why does ᎆ have another form?
They encode the same syllable in different orthographies. Unicode names 𞟴 “Gurage Bwee”; ᎆ is its corresponding Sebat Bet form. The text’s spelling system determines which character belongs there. A font lacking either glyph may show a box, which does not reveal the orthography.
A language-specific spelling unit: its role is clear in Gurage text and incomplete out of context.
Alone, ᎆ gives a syllable, not a complete Gurage word.
Part of the collection
Who writes ᎆ
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What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsOne written syllable; the whole word carries the meaning.
Don't confuse it with
2
Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why does ᎆ show as a box on some devices?
Not every system ships a font for the Ethiopic Supplement block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
More like this
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How to type or find ᎆ
- Also called
- bwee · Gurage bwee · Sebatbeit bwee
- Search it as
- Sebat Bet · Sebatbeit · Chaha · Gurage keyboard · Ethiopic keyboard · Ethiopic font
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ᎆ\1386Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.