What ው means
One character joins a consonant and vowel.
CLDR version 28 maps Amharic ው to wɨ, a brief w-glide followed by a short vowel; a 2011 Tigrinya romanization table gives we or w in Latin letters.
The Ethiopic script has ties to South Arabian consonant writing, which left vowels unmarked; exact descent is debated. Inscriptions show it by the second/third centuries CE; vowel signs made it syllabic by the fourth century CE. It was used for the Geʽez language and is used for Amharic, Tigrinya, and Tigre.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsDon't confuse it with
4Combination ideas
1Questions people ask
1Why does ው 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 ው
ው\12CDCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.