Etiopica Esteso-A

Ethiopic Extended-A is a Unicode block containing Ge'ez characters for the Gamo-Gofa-Dawro, Basketo, and Gumuz languages of Ethiopia. The Ethiopic script (Ge'ez alphabet ግዕዝ) is an abugida (consonant-syllabic writing), originally developed to write the Ancient Ethiopian language Ge'ez in the state of Aksum. The languages that use Ethiopic call it Fidäl (ፊደል), which is literally translated as 'script' or 'alphabet'.

Is the Ethiopian language the only one that applied the Ethiopic script? Not really. Ethiopic was also adapted for writing other languages. As a rule, they belonged to the Ethiopian Semitic group. The most widespread one — Amharic in Ethiopia and Tigrinya in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Apart from that, it is used for some of the Gurage languages, as well as Meken and many other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea, it is traditionally applied for the Kushite language Bilin. However, some languages had to move on from Ethiopic. For example, Oromo, which belongs to the African horn branch, but had to switch from Ethiopic to Latin.

In 1956 Sheikh Bakri Sapalo, an Oromo scholar, poet and religious teacher, invented of a writing system for the Oromo language. The syllabus was pretty similar to Ethiopian. However, the basic characters were developed later on their own.

In order to indicate sounds, this article uses a special system. It is common among linguists who study the Ethiopian languages, but it deviates from the International Phonetic Alphabet.