Ethiopic syllable Qhi

Qhi, written ቒ, is the i-vowel syllable in the Ethiopic series that begins with ቐ. Tigrinya and Amharic romanizations render it differently.

Text symbol

What ቒ means

It is the i-vowel form of the ቐ series.

ቒ represents a consonant-and-vowel syllable. Tigrinya's Latin-letter romanization writes it kh'i; an Amharic romanization writes it ḵī.

Ethiopic grew from South Arabian writing, which mainly marked consonants. South-Arabian-style local-language inscriptions in Ethiopia and Eritrea date to the 8th/7th centuries BCE. An indigenous Ethiopic script appears in the 2nd/3rd centuries CE; it marks vowels by the 4th. It first wrote the Geʿez language, then Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre. Amharic adopted it in the 13th or 14th century.

Who writes ቒ

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Don't confuse it with

ቂ

Ethiopic Syllable Qi

ቒ vs ቂ: ቂ is in a different Ethiopic consonant series. Tigrinya's Latin-letter romanization spells them kh'i and k'i, respectively.

Questions people ask

Why does ቒ 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.