Ethiopic syllable ho

ሆ marks one consonant-plus-vowel unit in Ethiopic writing. In Amharic and Geʿez, it adds a syllable inside a word; the surrounding word supplies the translation.

Ethiopic writing developed from consonant-only scripts related to South Arabian writing, rather than from a sign invented in isolation. The region’s earliest surviving inscriptional evidence, dated to the 8th/7th centuries BCE, uses an early South Arabian-related script sometimes called pseudo-Sabaean.

Royal inscriptions from Ezana’s era show Geʿez written both in South Arabian script and in an early Ethiopic form without vowel marks. Around the 4th century CE, vowel marks reshaped the inherited consonant system so a character could represent a consonant with a vowel. The syllabic system served Geʿez and later Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Oromo, and other languages.

How do I type ሆ?

Use h, then o in an Amharic mnemonic keyboard.

Keyman 3.3’s Amharic mnemonic layout maps h to the ሀ family and o to ሆ’s vowel form. That sequence belongs to this layout; other Ethiopic input methods can use different key maps.