U+12A5 "እ" Ethiopic Syllable Glottal E Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
እ
U+12A5 "እ" Ethiopic Syllable Glottal E is a character in the Ethiopic script used primarily for writing the Ge'ez, Amharic, and Tigrinya languages, among others. It represents a glottal stop followed by the vowel sound "e" and is part of a syllabary system where each character denotes a consonant vowel combination. This specific character, "እ," has a distinct shape and is often used as a definite article or a prefix in Amharic, as well as appearing in religious and classical Ge'ez texts. Its inclusion in the Unicode Standard ensures consistent digital representation across platforms, enabling proper text rendering and data interchange for millions of users in the Horn of Africa.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+12A5 |
| Version Added | 3.0 |
| Name | Ethiopic Syllable Glottal E |
| Block | Ethiopic |
| General Category | Other Letter |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Left To Right |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | እ |
| HTML Hex Encoding | እ |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xE1 0x8A 0xA5 |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x12A5 |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x000012A5 |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u12a5 |