What ጙ means
It writes one language-specific syllable.
The pronunciation of ጙ varies by language: CLDR gives /ŋu/ in Awngi, Blin, Qimant and Xamtanga; in English, /ŋ/ is “ng” in “sing,” and /u/ is “oo” in “food.” ICANN also lists it for Hamt’agna.
South Arabian writing reached northern Ethiopia around the eighth century BCE; the oldest known Ethiopic alphabet attestation is at the Dakhanamo site. Early inscriptions recorded Sabaic, a South Arabian language, and local speech. By the fourth century CE, vowel marks let letters spell syllables. Later Christian manuscripts and language adaptations mark the script’s changing use. These dates trace the script, not the first use of ጙ itself.
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Who writes ጙ
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Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
1Why does ጙ 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.
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How to type or find ጙ
- Search it as
- awngi · blin · qimant · xamtanga · ŋu
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ጙ\1319Gu; lowercase gu gives ጉ.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.