The Ge’ez script, also known as Ethiopic or fidel, is an abugida used across Ethiopia and Eritrea to write Amharic, Tigrinya, and the liturgical Ge’ez language. Unlike an alphabet, each character stands for a whole syllable: a consonant fused with one of seven vowels. This free tool maps Latin consonant-plus-vowel approximations to their matching Ethiopic Unicode characters so you can render names and words in fidel instantly, with no upload.
What makes Ethiopic an abugida
In a standard alphabet, consonants and vowels are separate letters. In an abugida, the base unit is a consonant that carries a default vowel, and that vowel changes by modifying the shape of the character. The Ethiopic abugida has around 33 base consonants, each with seven orders — one per vowel sound. A learner encountering the script for the first time often compares it to a large multiplication table: 33 consonants × 7 vowels = 231 core characters, all of them single Unicode code points.
How the mapping works
The seven traditional vowel orders, in sequence, are ä, u, i, a, e, ə (schwa), o. In Unicode, each consonant’s seven forms occupy seven consecutive code points, so the tool computes any character by taking the consonant’s base code point and adding the vowel’s order offset (0 through 6):
- A consonant plus a vowel — for example
ku— maps to the single character at that intersection (ኩ, the second order of ቀ’s family). - A bare consonant with no following vowel falls back to the sixth order, the ə or vowel-less form — so
balone becomes ብ. - Unrecognised characters, spaces, and punctuation pass through unchanged.
Reading the fidel grid — a worked example
The consonant b has base form በ (the ä order). Its full seven-character row is:
bä=በ bu=ቡ bi=ቢ ba=ባ be=ቤ bə=ብ bo=ቦTyping bati yields the three-character sequence በቲ (bä + ti) — a two-syllable rendering. Typing a sequence like selam (the Amharic greeting for “peace”) produces ሰላም.
What this tool covers and what it doesn’t
This mapper covers the common consonants and the seven standard vowel orders that form the core fidel grid. It does not encode:
- Labialised series — the extended forms such as ቈ (qwä) that add a ʷ glide.
- Gemination — the doubling of a consonant sound, which Amharic marks with a special mark rather than a separate character.
- Ethiopic numerals — a separate set of symbols for numbers.
- Punctuation — the Ethiopic full stop (።) and word separator (፡) are not generated.
Treat the output as a display and learning aid. Everything runs locally in your browser — your text is never sent to a server.