Editing Geʽez (section)

==Writing system==<!-- This section is linked from [[Unicode]] -->

{{Main|Geʽez script}}

[[File:Ethiopic genesis (ch. 29, v. 11-16), 15th century (The S.S. Teacher's Edition-The Holy Bible - Plate XII, 1).jpg|thumb|[[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 29.11–16 in Geʽez]]

Geʽez is written with Ethiopic or the Geʽez [[abugida]], a script that was originally developed specifically for this language. In languages that use it, such as Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is called ''{{transliteration|sem|Fidäl}}'', which means script or alphabet.

Geʽez is read from left to right.

The Geʽez script has been adapted to write other languages, usually ones that are also Semitic. The most widespread use is for Amharic in [[Ethiopia]] and Tigrinya in [[Eritrea]] and Ethiopia. It is also used for [[Sebat Bet Gurage language|Sebatbeit]], [[Meʼen language|Meʼen]], Agew, and most other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it is used for Tigre, and it is often used for [[Bilen language|Bilen]], a [[Cushitic languages|Cushitic language]]. Some other languages in the [[Horn of Africa]], such as [[Oromo language|Oromo]], used to be written using Geʽez but have switched to [[Latin script|Latin]]-based alphabets.
It also uses four series of consonant signs for [[labialized velar consonant|labialized velar]] consonants, which are variants of the non-labialized velar consonants:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
!rowspan="2" |Basic sign
| {{transliteration|sem|q(a)}}
| {{transliteration|sem|ḫ(a)}} || {{transliteration|sem|k(a)}}
| {{transliteration|sem|g(a)}}
|- style="font-size:2em"
| ቀ || ኀ || ከ || ገ
|-
!rowspan="2"|Labialized variant
| {{transliteration|sem|qʷ(a)}}
| {{transliteration|sem|ḫʷ(a)}} || {{transliteration|sem|kʷ(a)}}
| {{transliteration|sem|gʷ(a)}}
|- style="font-size:2em"
| ቈ || ኈ || ኰ || ጐ
|}