Ethiopic syllable chaa

ጫ is an Ethiopic syllable sign, not a word. Its sound depends on the language; its meaning comes from the surrounding word.

Text symbol

What ጫ means

A syllable sign, not a complete word.

An Aksum archaeological account places the earliest Ethiopic alphabet attestation at Dakhanamo (as of 2026); it records the script’s ancestor, not ጫ. The script was developed for Geʽez, a classical Ethiopian language, and is linked to South Arabian inscriptional writing, though its route is debated. Around the 4th century CE, vowel notation reshaped older consonant signs into syllables; it later spread to Amharic, Tigre, Oromo and other languages.

Fonts may draw ጫ differently; its encoded syllable stays the same.

Part of the collection

ሀ

Amharic Alphabet & Letters

Who writes ጫ

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Don't confuse it with

ቻ

Ethiopic Syllable Caa

ቻ belongs to the ቸ series, while ጫ belongs to the ጨ series. Ethiopic syllable series keep a consonant family and vary its vowel, so these are different syllables despite similar romanizations.

Questions people ask

Why does ጫ show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.