What ᎁ means
It writes a Gurage syllable whose m is made with rounded lips. The following vowel is i, like the vowel in “machine”; this rounded-lip quality is called labialization.
In 1962, Gurage writer Sahle Selassie Berhane Mariam and linguist Wolf Leslau devised 44 Ethiopic letters for sounds the established writing system did not represent. They began the project while preparing Gurage village stories. This m-family form was among the additions; matching b, f and p syllable families were added too. The Ethiopic text appeared in print in 1966 in the Chaha volume of Ethiopians Speak, an academic book on Gurage language and culture.
Is ᎁ used in modern Gurage spelling?
Modern Gurage spelling treats ᎁ as a legacy form. A 2021 proposal maps the same syllable to 𞟭. When transcribing an older source, keep the spelling it uses.
Historical and technical; useful for reading or transcribing older Gurage texts.
Do not silently substitute 𞟭 for ᎁ; they belong to different Gurage spelling systems.
Part of the collection
Who writes ᎁ
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Related characters
4
Questions people ask
1Why does ᎁ appear as a box?
A box can appear when the browser’s selected font does not include this Ethiopic character. That is a display issue; the character remains ᎁ.
More like this
8
How to type or find ᎁ
- Search it as
- mwi · Gurage mwi · old Gurage spelling · Ethiopic input
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ᎁ\1381Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.