Ethiopic syllable pho

It represents pʼo: a p with a brief throat closure, then o.

In Amharic-oriented transliteration, the raised mark in pʼo signals that throat closure. In Ethiopic writing, a consonant row keeps the same starting sound while its forms change the vowel; “pho” is the Unicode name for this syllable, not a translation.

Ethiopic writing developed from pseudo-Sabaean, an early consonant-only script attested in the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition from the 8th–7th centuries BCE. Its link to the South Arabian abjad, another consonant-only writing system, is generally accepted, though the exact route is debated. By the 4th century CE, the tradition had become an abugida: consonant shapes changed to mark vowels. It was developed for Geʽez, a language later central to religious manuscripts, and adapted for Amharic and other languages.