Ethiopic syllable thaa

In Amharic, ጣ is an ejective t followed by a. The t is made with a brief throat closure and a sharp release; the open a sounds like the a in “father.” Amharic romanizations write the syllable ṭa or t'a. The Unicode label “thaa” identifies the character, but does not set its pronunciation in every language.

Fidel is the name for the Ethiopic syllable-writing system: each sign contributes one consonant-vowel syllable, so neighboring signs complete the word. The Ethiopic script began as a local adaptation of South Arabian consonant writing for Geʿez. Early Proto-Geʿez monumental evidence is dated to the 4th–5th century BCE; around the 4th century CE, consonant-only writing became an abugida, a system whose signs pair consonants with vowels.

Geʿez became the language of sacred writing, and the same script later served Amharic, Tigrinya, and other languages. The language being written determines a sign’s precise sound.

How do I type ጣ?

Use a phonetic keyboard and check its candidate. As of 2026-10-08, the Geʾez Frontier Foundation’s Ethiopic Keyman table maps Ta to ጣ. The Windows Amharic input method accepts sound-based input on English keys; Enter selects the candidate.

If ጣ appears as a box or question mark, the font may not cover Ethiopic. Fonts can draw the same encoded character in different ways, so a changed outline does not by itself mean the text contains a different character.