Amharic

Letters

Combining marks

Numbers

Punctuation

Vowel sounds

Much writing on Amharic has ɑ̈ and ə respectively for ə and ɨ. The sound ɨ only rarely occurs at the end of a word, and ə rarely at the beginning of a word. These letters are also often elided by adjacent vowel sounds.c

ɛ appears as a variant of e after h.c

Consonant sounds

	labial	dental	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
stop	p b	t d				k ɡ	ʔ
ejectives	pʼ	tʼ				kʼ kʷʼ
labialised						kʷ ɡʷ
affricate				t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
ejective				t͡ʃˤ
fricative	f v		s z	ʃ ʒ			h
ejective/labialised			sʼ				hʷ
nasal	m		n		ɲ
approximant	w		l		j
trill/flap			r ɾ

Note that t and d are produced with a dental articulation, ie t̪ and d̪.wa

p was introduced through loan words and is unaspirated (often confused with b).wa

Tone

Amharic is not a tonal language.

Structure

tbd

Syllable composition

The basic letter shapes come from the original Geʽez script, which was an abjad. The script became an abugida when small changes were added to those shapes to indicate the following vowel sound. Each CV syllable is now represented by a single character in the Unicode repertoire.

Vowels Each consonant can be followed by one of 7 vowel sounds. The original consonant shape is known as the 'first order', and the other shapes constitute incremental orders. The illustration below is based on the m consonant.

The IPA symbols shown above are broad transcriptions and the actual phonetic pronunciation can vary somewhat, depending on the consonant, on stress, or on other factors. The IPA transcriptions for the vowels may also vary from publication to publication. In particular, the following are common:

The first-order sounds of syllables beginning with h or standalone vowel syllables are usually pronounced a, rather than ɜ.

Basic consonants The basic set of Ethiopic syllables comprises the following consonants. The pronunciation listed is for Amharic (which has lost the phonetic distinction between some characters).

See basicV for the last two items in the list.

Language-specific consonants Additional sets of consonants match the sounds in the various different languages that use the Ethiopic script. Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, and Blin each use a selection from the following set.

Amharic uses all of the above apart from the letters for xʼ and ŋ.

Glides Most consonants can be accompanied by the bilabial ʷa, but Amharic also has a set of common labiovelar consonants, which are followed by 5 of the vowel sounds. The list below shows the -ɜ form; the other vowels following labiovelar consonants include i, a, e, and ə.

Three consonants also have a ʲɛ ending:

Standalone vowels & glottal stops

The አ and ዐ series have lost their consonantal values and are vowel carriers in modern Amharic. Though sometimes the glottal stop ʔ is pronounced in word initial and medial positions, it is often dropped,wa eg. አየሩ

ኧ is irregular and is pronounced (ʔ)ä.wa

In the Geʽez language, ዐ represents the sound ʕ, and አ represents a glottal stop ʔ.

Consonant-vowel syllables

The following is a list of syllabic characters used for Amharic.

In a number of cases, alternative syllabic symbols are available for a given pronunciation. This is because they used to have different pronunciations in the Geʽez language but those differences have fallen away in Amharic. Amharic writing still preserves the old spelling, reflecting the origin of the word.wa

The IPA shown is the standard form used for lexemes, but stress and context may replace the sounds shown with allophones.

Vowel absence

Although Amharic letters represent a consonant plus vowel in the general case, phonetically many words and syllables end with a consonant followed by no vowel. These are written using the ə orthographic syllable, eg.

ስም

However the syllable is ambiguous – in some cases the vowel could be pronounced, and there is no way to tell the difference, eg. the last 3 characters in the following word all use the ə syllable but the vowel is dropped for 2 of them.

ሚኒስትር

Onset clusters

Word-initial onsets are only rarely composed of a sequence of consonants, and there is no special mechanism to deal with them. See novowel.

Syllable-final consonants

There is no special mechanism, either, for handling syllable-final or word-final consonants . They are written using the mechanism described in novowel.

መቀዝቀዝ

Consonant clusters

The ə orthographic syllable (see novowel) is also used for clusters of consonants with no intervening vowels, eg. click on the following to see its composition:

ኢትዮጵያ

Consonant length

Geminate consonants do occur in Amharic and other languages that use the Ethiopic script, and they can be important to distinguish one word from another. However, they are not marked in the script, eg.

አየሩ

Diacritics

The Ethiopic blocks have only 3 combining characters, but their use is rare.

The first is for vowel length, the second a gemination indicator (see silent), and the third a combination of both.

According to Wikipediawa, Ethiopian novelist Haddis Alemayehu, who was an advocate of Amharic orthography reform, indicated gemination in his novel Fǝqǝr Ǝskä Mäqabǝr by placing a dot above the characters whose consonants were geminated, but this practice is rare. Unicode provides 135F for this, but sometimes    ◌̎ U+030E COMBINING DOUBLE VERTICAL LINE ABOVE is used.

Digits

European digits are commonly used.

translation

The European Union has donated 31.5 million euros to be used for health services in conflict-affected areas of Ethiopia.

Ethiopic also has a native numbering system that is additive in nature.

You can generate Ethiopic numbers using the Counter styles converter app. Type in a number at the top and select ethiopic-numeric from the select box.

Note that it is common for there to be an unbroken line across the whole number at the top and bottom, although sometimes the lines remain broken.

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers are indicated in Amharic by following the cardinal number with ኛ, often superscripted. It can be applied to numbers using both Western and Ethiopic digits.e,#ethiopic_ordinal_notation

translation

Agenda of the 29th Ordinary General Assembly:

translation

But now we think that the coming Congress, the 118th Congress, will be more friendly to Ethiopia and our region.

Context-based shaping & positioning

Ethiopic letters don't interact, so no special shaping is needed.

Base characters carry only a single combining mark, but these are only used in specialised contexts.

Word boundaries

The concept of 'word' is difficult to define in any language (see What is a word?). Here, a word is a vaguely-defined, but recognisable semantic unit that is typically smaller than a phrase and may comprise one or more syllables.

Words are often separated by spaces in modern text, however they may be separated by ፡ instead, although it is becoming less common, but is still seen commonly in handwritten texte,#ethiopic_punctuation.

translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Observation: A sample page from Wikipedia mixes both approaches on the same page. Some paragraphs use the wordspace and others just separate words with spaces. Where the wordspace is used, it is surrounded by ordinary spaces.

If inline text is styled, eg. underlining, colouring, etc., the wordspace receives the same styling as the word it follows.

Hyphenated words can also be found, eg. ድረ-ገጾች web sites

Graphemes

Grapheme clusters

Syllable Combining_mark*

In Amharic, a typographic unit is normally equivalent to a single character, and therefore also equivalent to a Unicode grapheme cluster, eg.

ኢትዮጵያ

On the very rare occasions when a combining mark is used, the unit is still a standard grapheme cluster.

Phrase & section boundaries

Some ASCII punctuation may be used, but Ethiopic has several native punctuation characters.

Phrases. ፣ or ፥ are both roughly equivalent to a comma. They are considered glyph variants for the same punctuation symbol, although usually a document will consistently use only one or the other. Different texts tend to favour one or the other. The latter is more common in religious texts, and is used for biblical references where English would use a colon.e,#ethiopic_punctuation For more detail see Yacobe,#ethiopic_comma_usage e,#wordspace_in_comma_context.

translation

Semitic languages are Greek, Amharic, Tigrinya, Guruga, Arabian, Harari.

translation

Matt 4:23.

፤ Used to separate equivalent main phrases in one idea. Even though it is not placed at the end of a paragraph, it can be used to separate sentences with similar ideas in a paragraph.e,#ethiopic_punctuation Usage is consistent within a given text, but may overlap with one of the previous comma puncuation marks.

translation

In the completed transfer window, clubs have signed a number of players: They renewed the contract. They also brought in from the lower league.

translation

"Therefore, when there are mistakes and their existence is confirmed, we are making corrections," he said.

፦ Follows clarification of a subject. It will preface validation statements and examples that support the clarification. 

translation

Example: water, dog, ants, etc.

Sentences. ። is commonly used, immediately preceded by a wordspace character if the text contains them. It is also possible to find the ASCII full stop used.

translation

We have a problem. Renting a house is the biggest problem. People don't want to hire for this job. There are those who change their minds after going to the contract and evidence.

The ASCII question mark is common at the end of questions, but Ethiopic also has its own ፧. This has fallen into disuse in modern textse,#ethiopic_punctuation.

translation

What is the key role of carbon dioxide in climate change?

Amharic also uses the ASCII exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.

¡, known as “Timirte Slaq” (ትእምርተ፡ሥላቅ) appears at the end of a sentence and denotes sarcasm.e,2.3.1 It is not common, but can be found in often in political comics.

Paragraphs. ፨ may be used to conclude the final paragraph of a section in lieu of ።. Like ፠ below, three or more may also be used together on a line of their own. This is not much used in modern text.e,#ethiopic_punctuation

Sections. ፠ Used to divide sections or subsections; generally three or more used together on a line of their own. This, also, is not much seen in modern text.e,#ethiopic_punctuation

Bracketed text

(␣)

Amharic commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

	start	end
standard	(	)

translation

From new to old (at the time of creation)

Quotations & citations

Amharic texts typically use guillemets around quotations, but modern texts may use the quotation marks insteade,#quotation. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

The same punctuation is used to highlight cited words (see fig_guillemets).

translation

Of the remaining half-words in the list, many are derived from other Geez roots, for example "he" instead of Geez "wettu", apparently from "the title" (himself).

Observation: The Ethiopian Reporter site has dialogues that begin with the person's name followed by ፡– [U+1361 ETHIOPIC WORDSPACE + U+2013 EN DASH]. There are no wordspace characters in the normal text. Should this be ፦ [U+1366 ETHIOPIC PREFACE COLON]?

translation

Reporter: You also have a big sister and brother program.

Sunnah: We assign one person to one child who can be an example in their lives. These people are like big sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles, they are the ones who talk to them, pamper them, are role models, and make them have fun together.

Emphasis

According to Yacob, Emphasis in modern Ethiopic writing will employ every emphasis device available from the available publishing technology (e.g. underline, slant, embolden, letter size, letter outline, background shapes, etc.). The practice however is idiosyncratic and inconsistently applied leading to debate and disagreement within the publishing community.e,#h_emphasis

He provides the following examples:

In ecclesiastical texts emphasis is commonly indicated by colouring the text rede,#h_emphasis.

In text that uses the wordspace to separate words the styling is also associated with the wordspacee,#emphasis_with_wordspace.

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

Ellipsis

Amharic uses 3 consecutive dots to signal ellipsis.

translation

Blathew Farm, which is said to cover the needs of the local fruit market...

Yacob notes that in Ethiopic literature ellipsis may have anywhere between 3–6 dotse,#ellipsis

Digit text decoration

Digits are identified by a line that runs across the top and the bottom of a number. The line is built into the font glyphs, rather than text decoration, but in a capable rendering system extends unbroken across the whole number. See digits.

Other punctuation

Line breaking & hyphenation

Modern Ethiopic text is generally wrapped word by word. If wordspace separators are used, they are wrapped with the word, and should not appear alone at the beginning of a line.g116

Older Ethiopic text is generally wrapped wherever it hits the right margin, whether wordspace or space are used to separate words, and no hyphenation occurs.g116

Observation: It's possible that a rule is sometimes applied to letter-based wrapping that requires a minimum of 2 letters at the end of a line for printed text (as opposed to handwritten manuscripts). This was observed by Daniel Yacob in the book, "ዜናዊ ፓርልማ" from 1953 (1946EC).g116,#issuecomment-582412224

Whatever style of wrapping is used, however, the following punctuation wrapping rules apply (which means that a wordspace separator should not appear at the start of a line, even when letter-by-letter wrapping occurs).

A new line should not start with a space, math operator or any of the following:e,#ethiopic_punctuation

Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the Amharic language.

Text alignment & justification

Full justification is a common typesetting practice. Ethiopic is usually justified by adjusting inter-word spacing. Where words are separated with ፡ this is still the case, however no extra spaces should be added – the width of the wordspace character changes.

When the wordspace character width changes, the wordspace glyph may be centred, or may appear alongside the previous word, depending on preference.

Baselines, line height, etc.

The Ethiopic script uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts. There is some variability from letter to letter in the height of the letter forms and in the positioning relative to the baseline, but the differences are small.

By way of example, fig_baselines compares Latin and Ethiopic glyphs from Noto fonts. The maximum height of Ethiopic letters with a top bar is about the Latin ascender height, with 'serifs' that rise very slightly higher. Note, however, that the height of the Ethiopic glyphs varies from letter to letter, and other Ethiopic letters are set to the Latin cap height. Noto letters sit on the alphabetic baseline. No glyphs reach below the Latin descender extension.

If diacritics are applied above the Ethiopic letters, they will increase the overall line height.

fig_baselines_kefa compares Latin and Ethiopic glyphs from the Kefa and Nyala fonts. The Kefa Ethiopic letters are less regular in height and are on the whole just slightly taller compared to the Noto fonts. All fonts are similar, however.

According to Yacobe,#relative_character_heights, fixed height styles are more generally used for advertisement and not publishing.

Counters, lists, etc.

You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.

The Amharic language uses numeric and alphabetic styles.