Ethiopic syllable Swa

It spells one spoken syllable, not a word with its own meaning.

The earliest related records are pseudo-Sabaean inscriptions—Ethiopian and Eritrean texts imitating South Arabian Sabaean forms—from the 8th/7th centuries BC. An Ethiopic abjad, a script that writes only consonants, appears in the 1st–3rd centuries AD; by the 4th century it became an abugida, where consonant signs also mark their vowels.

The script first served Ge’ez, then adapted for Amharic, Tigre, and Oromo. South Arabian inscriptions had funerary, religious, and administrative uses; Ethiopian inscriptions also recorded local languages.