Ethiopic syllable fi

It represents “fi”; the surrounding word supplies its meaning.

Regional writing begins with pseudo-Sabaean inscriptions (South Arabian-style) from the 8th/7th centuries BCE. A local consonant script adapted from that tradition appears in the 1st–3rd centuries CE; by the 4th century CE it had become an abugida, where consonant forms mark vowels. Adapted for Geʿez, it entered royal inscriptions; later it served Amharic and Tigrinya, while Geʿez remained liturgical.

In the Ethiopic f family, ፊ is the third vowel order; the other forms keep f and change the vowel. Fonts may alter its outline without changing its reading.