What ስ means
It pairs the s consonant with the row’s sixth vowel order. Fidel groups forms with the same consonant in rows.
South Arabian alphabetic writing was used in the Horn by the 8th century BCE; an inscription at Dakhanamo records that tradition, linked to Ethiopic’s ancestor.
In the 3rd–4th centuries CE, vowel marking reshaped consonant signs into syllables. The script wrote Ge’ez, a language used in royal inscriptions, and later Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre and others.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does ስ 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.
How to type ስ
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 1235, then Alt+X to get ስ.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “ethiopic syllable se”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 1235, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ስCSS
\1235Ethiopic input
On a family/order Ethiopic keyboard, choose the s family, then order six; keystrokes vary by layout.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ስ
HTML hex
ስ
CSS content
content: "\1235";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E1%88%B5
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.