The Course Introduction:
Welcome to the Amharic Alphabet Series — Part 1.
This course is designed to help you read Amharic confidently. Please read/watch each lesson carefully, starting from this one. Every lesson includes a short quiz at the end of the lesson, so make sure to complete it.
If you follow these lessons attentively and do the quizzes, reading Amharic will become easy for you.
In this article (and video), you will learn:
- How many letters the Amharic alphabet has,
- The difference between vowel sounds and consonant letters,
- And how letters in each column look and sound.
Although I have published many Amharic alphabet videos and articles before, many learners still struggle to read Amharic clearly. That’s why I created this series again — to explain everything simply and clearly.
This alphabet course is the most important step in learning Amharic. After completing it, I will not use Latin transliteration in my future Amharic lessons, so mastering reading now is essential.
Now, let’s start today’s lesson.
- How many letters does the Amharic alphabet have?
The Amharic alphabet is built from 34 basic consonant letters.
Each consonant combines with vowel sounds to form additional letters.
- 34 pure consonant letters
- About 225 consonant–vowel combinations
- Around 259 letters in total
These Are the Pure Consonant Forms (No Vowel Added):
| ህ | ር | ቭ | ኝ | ዕ | ጅ | ፅ |
| ሕ | ስ | ት | እ | ዝ | ግ | ጵ |
| ል | ሽ | ች | ክ | ዥ | ጥ | ፍ |
| ም | ቅ | ኅ | ኽ | ይ | ጭ | ፕ |
| ሥ | ብ | ን | ው | ድ | ጽ |
These 34 letters are the foundation of the Amharic writing system.
Hybrid letters
Out of the consonant–vowel combinations, about 21 letters are hybrid letters. They are very common and used in daily Amharic writing and speech. Examples include:
Hybrid letters
Understanding the Columns
In every row of the Amharic alphabet, there is only one pure consonant, and it appears in the sixth column. Example:
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. |
| ሀ | ሁ | ሂ | ሃ | ሄ | ህ | ሆ | ኋ |
| ለ | ሉ | ሊ | ላ | ሌ | ል | ሎ | ሏ |
| መ | ሙ | ሚ | ማ | ሜ | ም | ሞ | ሟ |
- Column 6 contains the pure consonants; they’re 34 in total.
- The other 7 letters in each row are consonant–vowel combinations.
- Each consonant changes its shape depending on the vowel added.
The Amharic Vowel Sounds
Amharic has seven vowel sounds.
We use the following letters only to represent the sounds, not their written forms:
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. |
| ኧ (e) | ኡ (u) | ኢ (i) | አ (a) | ኤ (ie) | ኦ (o) | ኡአ (ua) |
Unlike English, vowels are not written as separate letters in Amharic.
Instead, vowel sounds appear as small marks, short legs, circles, hooks, or horizontal lines attached to consonant letters.
The Amharic letters’ shapes and sounds:
Now let’s see how each letter under each column looks and sounds. After this lesson, your Amharic reading skill will improve.
Column 1:
The letters under the first column or under the vowel letter ‘e’ are very clear letters with not much addition or mark on them compared to other letters and are pronounced like the “ኧ/e” sound, ‘e’ in “earth,” or “u” in “urban.”
So, the Amharic vowel sound here is ኧ/e. All 34 letters in the first column are read with the same vowel sound added to them. So, we read all of them like he, le, me, se, re, etc.
You see, almost all of the Amharic letters in each column have the same vowel markers and the same sound position. So, this makes them really easy to memorize.
Column 2:
The letters under the second column have a small mark on their right side indicating the vowel sound “ኡ/u.” So, we read all letters under the second column like “u,” for example, “hu,” “lu,” “mu,” “su,” “ru,” etc.
Column 3:
These letters have a right-pointing suffix in their leg indicating the vowel sound “ኢ/i,” like “i” in “or” or “little.” So, we read all of them like hi, li, mi, si, ri, etc.
Column 4:
These letters have the shortest leg on the left, indicating the vowel sound “ኣ/a” in “as.” So, we read all of them like ha, la, ma, sa, ra, etc.
Column 5:
These letters have a ring on the right leg indicating the vowel sound “a” as in “care” or “able.” So, we read all of them like hie, lie, mie, sie, rie, etc.
Column 6:
These letters are the consonant letters without vowel additions, read as consonants alone, like shewa, sounds like s, f, k, l, m, h, etc.
Column 7:
All letters in the 7th column are pronounced with the vowel “o,” as in, or, or no. To pronounce them correctly, the mouth becomes a round circle. So, we read them like ho, lo, mo, so, ro, etc.
Even though all letters in this column share the same vowel sound, their shapes are not similar. So, to make it easy, we can divide them into three simple groups:
- Some of them have a ring on their top. Examples like ሆ (ho), ሎ (lo), ሮ (ro), ኖ (No), ቆ (Qo), ቶ (To) and ቾ (Cho).
- Some letters have the shortest leg on the right. Examples like ሶ (so), ሞ (Mo), ቦ (bo), ሾ (sho), ሖ (Ho), ጦ (To), ጮ (Cho) etc.
- There are also a few letters in this column, including ዖ, ፖ, and ፆ, that have a noticeable right-leaning diagonal shape. You can recognize them easily by the way their top part curves to the right.
All these Amharic letters in the seventh row are pronounced with the vowel sound “o” in “or,” “also,” etc.
Column 8:
The eighth letters like ኋ፣ ሏ፣ ሟ፣ ሷ፣ ቷ፣ ኗ፣ ቋ፣ ቧ፣ ፏ etc have a kind of a horizontal line under their leg. And, we read them like hua, lua, mua, sua, rua, etc.
By understanding these distinctive Amharic alphabet patterns, you can more easily identify and read Amharic.
Did you understand today’s lesson? If you didn’t, no problem; watch it again three times, and it’ll be clearer for you. If you still don’t understand it, in the next series of videos, we will learn each letter one by one, so you’ll understand it.
So, make sure to subscribe to the channel and turn on the bell icon so you won’t miss any upcoming videos.
If you want to be able to read Amharic, then this is the most crucial step for you.
Amharic Alphabet Quiz ClassWork
Don’t forget to take the mini-quiz below! Post your score in the comments or in our WhatsApp and Telegram groups so I can see how you’re doing. I’ll be looking out for your answers!
HomeWork
Read each letter using the formula we used above and record your voice while reading the letters, and submit your homework through the Telegram group or WhatsApp. I am excited to see your answers.
