U+12D5 "ዕ" Ethiopic Syllable Pharyngeal E Unicode Character

Unicode Version 17.0

U+12D5 "ዕ" Ethiopic Syllable Pharyngeal E is a glyph in the Ethiopic script used primarily for Ge'ez, Amharic, and Tigrinya languages, representing a syllable with a pharyngeal consonant sound often romanized as 'e' or 'ē' and produced with a constriction in the pharynx. This character belongs to the Ethiopic block of Unicode, serving as a distinct vowel variant that modifies the base consonant form to denote a specific phonetic value, typically occurring in words requiring a pharyngeal articulation. Its historical use traces back to ancient Ge'ez writing, where it contributed to the script's syllabary system, and it remains essential for accurately spelling terms in modern Ethiopian and Eritrean languages, such as the word for "head" in Amharic.

General Properties

Code Point U+12D5
Version Added 3.0
Name Ethiopic Syllable Pharyngeal E
Block Ethiopic
General Category Other Letter
Canonical Combining Class Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class Left To Right

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding ዕ
HTML Hex Encoding ዕ
UTF-8 Encoding 0xE1 0x8B 0x95
UTF-16 Encoding 0x12D5
UTF-32 Encoding 0x000012D5
C/C++/Java Escape \u12d5

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