Ethiopic Syllable Qyi

It marks palatalized q+i in older Gurage writing. Here, q is a way to write the consonant’s sound; palatalized means the tongue rises toward the hard palate as the consonant is made. The letter also belongs to Sebat Bet writing, a Gurage tradition.

Work on this spelling began in 1962 with Sahle Selassie Berhane Mariam and linguist Wolf Leslau. The Ethiopic text first appeared in print in 1966 in a collection of Chaha stories. A Unicode proposal estimated that the letters were introduced in 1963–1964 and named Leslau’s 1965 book as the first major outside publication using them; these dates describe different stages.

The refined inventory entered Ethiopia’s ES-781 standard in 2002, and Unicode adopted it in 2005. Modern Gurage spelling uses ቒ as the counterpart of older ⷂ. Follow the spelling system used by the rest of the text.

How do I type ⷂ?

Use a GFF Sebatbeit phonetic keyboard or Unicode input. The GFF manual puts ⷂ in its qy group and describes a y extension for palatalized forms; use its chart for the exact key sequence. With Unicode hexadecimal input, enter 2DC2 and convert it, or search the character’s name in a picker.

A blank square usually means the active font lacks this character. Try a font with Ethiopic Extended coverage; ⷀ and ⷁ are different letters, not substitutes.