U+12C0 "ዀ" Ethiopic Syllable Kxwa Unicode Character

Unicode Version 17.0

U+12C0 "ዀ" Ethiopic Syllable Kxwa is a specific sign within the Geʽez script, which is used for writing several languages of the Horn of Africa, most notably Amharic and Tigrinya. It represents a syllable with the consonant sound "kx" (a voiceless velar fricative) combined with the vowel "a," deriving from the base consonant character ኀ and formed by adding a labialization diacritic to create the /kʷʰa/ or /xʷa/ sound. This character is part of the Ethiopic block in Unicode, preserving a traditional writing system that dates back to antiquity and is written from left to right. The Geʽez script is an abugida, where each symbol inherently includes a vowel, and the addition of modifiers alters this base vowel, resulting in a range of syllabic forms such as ዀ.

General Properties

Code Point U+12C0
Version Added 3.0
Name Ethiopic Syllable Kxwa
Block Ethiopic
General Category Other Letter
Canonical Combining Class Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class Left To Right

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding ዀ
HTML Hex Encoding ዀ
UTF-8 Encoding 0xE1 0x8B 0x80
UTF-16 Encoding 0x12C0
UTF-32 Encoding 0x000012C0
C/C++/Java Escape \u12c0

Unicode Properties

NFC Quick Check Yes
NFD Quick Check Yes
NFKC Quick Check Yes
NFKD Quick Check Yes
Numeric Type None
Numeric Value NaN
Line Break Alphabetic
Script Ethiopic
Script Extensions Ethiopic
Indic Syllabic Category Other
ID Start Yes
XID Start Yes
ID Continue Yes
XID Continue Yes
Alphabetic Yes
Vertical Orientation Rotated
Grapheme Base Yes
Grapheme Cluster Break Other
Word Break Alphabetic letter
Sentence Break OLetter