AMHARIC: Crossword Puzzles

The (ሀ)ha (ሁ) hu Alphabet. Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script. The writing system is called fidäl (ፊደል) in Ethiopian Semitic languages.

Fidäl means "script", "alphabet", "letter", or "character". The writing system is also called abugida (አቡጊዳ), from the first four symbols; from this the modern term abugida is derived.

Each character represents a consonant+vowel sequence, but the basic shape of each character is determined by the consonant, which is modified for the vowel.

Some consonant phonemes are written by more than one series of characters: /ʔ/, /s/, /sʼ/, and /h/ (the last one has four distinct letter forms).

This is because these fidel originally represented distinct sounds, but phonological changes merged them. The citation form for each series is the consonant+ä form, i.e. the first column of the fidel.

The Amharic script is included in Unicode, and glyphs are included in fonts available with major operating systems. In America’s capital, Washington DC, Amharic became one of the six non-English languages in the Language Access Act of 2004, which allows government services and education in Amharic.