Ethiopic syllable cee

It marks the “ch” consonant with the vowel e.

One Ethiopic fidel sign combines consonant and vowel. For ቼ vs ቸ, the difference is the vowel: ቼ marks e. Ethiopic script also writes Tigrinya and Tigre.

Where did ቼ come from?

It belongs to a script that changed as it spread.

Ethiopic writing developed from South Arabian writing adapted in the Horn of Africa for Ge'ez, an older Ethiopian language. The earliest writing attested in Ethiopia and Eritrea appears in pseudo-Sabaean inscriptions, early writing resembling South Arabian, from the 8th/7th centuries BCE. A distinct Ethiopic script appears in the second/third centuries CE. By the 4th century, its signs marked vowels by changing consonant forms, creating an abugida: a writing system whose signs combine consonants and vowels. During Amharic adaptation in the 14th and 15th centuries, additional consonant series, including the ch-series, were added.