Ethiopic Syllable Zee

It marks a syllable; the surrounding word gives meaning.

Its sound is a z consonant followed by the e vowel. In Amharic, words that start with ዜ include ዜና (“news”), ዜጋ (“citizen”), and ዜማ (“chant”). It is the fifth form in the Ethiopic z-series.

The Ethiopic script was adapted from Old South Arabian writing and gained vowel notation by the fourth century CE. South Arabian writing had reached the Horn by the eighth century BCE; the earliest reported Ethiopian alphabet inscription is from Dakhanamo. The script was later used for Geʽez worship texts and for writing Amharic, Tigre, and Oromo.