What ⶃ means
It writes /sɔ/ in Me’en, Dizi, Mursi, and Suri.
The Me’en “soa” pronunciation is an s followed by an open o, written /sɔ/. CLDR 28 maps it to Dizi, Me’en, Mursi, and Suri, and marks it unused in Amharic. Let the surrounding language decide which reading applies.
Ethiopic’s early alphabetic forms are linked to writing from South Arabia. Around the fourth century CE, the script developed into a syllabary, where signs represent consonant-vowel syllables. ⶃ belongs to a later extension for languages not covered by the basic set.
Why does ⶃ look like a box?
Your font may lack the extended Ethiopic character.
As of 2026, font support varies: a font can render common Ethiopic text but omit this extension. The SIL Abyssinica sample includes the Me’en row. If ⶃ appears as an empty square, the font likely lacks this character; use one with Ethiopic Extended coverage.
How do I type ⶃ?
Use a Me’en-aware Ethiopic keyboard.
The Me’en chart labels ⶃ “soa” and enters the consonant before the vowel. Choose a layout that includes Ethiopic Extended.
Technical and language-specific; it belongs in Ethiopic text written for languages that use this extension.
Replacing it with ሶ changes the vowel from /ɔ/ to /o/.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsDon't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does ⶃ 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 ⶃ
ⶃ\2D83Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.