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አማርኛ (Amharic) Keyboard Help

Keyboard © 1997-2022. Geʾez Frontier Foundation.


Overview
Using this Keyboard
Keyboard Layout
Quickstart
Examples
Keyboard Details
Complete Typing Chart - English
Complete Typing Chart - Amharic
Troubleshooting
Further Resources
Related Keyboard Layouts
Technical Information
Authorship

Overview

This keyboard is designed for use with the Amharic language of Ethiopia in Africa. Typing follows a consonant-vowel pattern. It is designed for use with a standard (QWERTY) keyboard.

Most computers will automatically download a special font to display this keyboard correctly. However, if the layout or the charts below do not display correctly, please read the troubleshooting guide.

Click here to see keyboard layouts for other Ethiopic languages, like Awngi, Bench, Blin, Dizi, Geʾez, Meʾen, Mursi, Sebatbeit, Suri and Tigrigna.

Using this Keyboard

Keyboard Layout

Desktop Keyboard Layout

Phone Keyboard Layout

Letters

When the GFF Amharic mobile keyboard starts, the key layout appears as shown in the following image. Note the relationship between the letters of the middle row and top row:

Tapping a key once, the modifier letters to the left (, , ) and right (, , ) of the spacebar. For example, tapping the modifiers change to , , , , , . If a modifier is tapped, ግ will be updated on screen.

As an alternative, if preferred, holding a key down for a few moments (called a “longpress”) a popup menu appears where you can tap the letter desired. The popup menu for is shown below:

The modifier keys will also have popups as applicable. For example to enter the extended syllables for , , , and as shown:

Punctuation

When typing letters, the ! and keys are available for entering the most common punctuation without shifting to another “layer”. The following image shows the punctuation for a longpress of !:

The punctuation for a longpress of :

For additional punctuation and numerals, tap the 123 key to shift to the next layer:

Note that numerals on the punctuation layer use the long press feature to make Geʾez numerals available:

Tapping the @ shifts to a 2nd layer to access all remaining punctuation:

A tap of the key will go to the final layer where Geʾez numbers and some less used, and non-Amharic letters, can be accessed.

Numerals

The last layer to shift to presents the Geʾez numbers, all Geʾez punctuation, letters of related languages, and a few lesser used letters that did not fit conveniently on the initial letters layer.

Note the arrow button, , at the end of the row of Geʾez numerals, tapping it will slide the numerals to the remaining numbers that are orders of ten (e.g. ፳, ፴, ፵, etc.):

After tapping the button, the Geʾez orders of ten appear as shown:

Tapping the button again slides to the western digits, a final tap will return to the initial Geʾez numerals.

Simply tap the ሀለሐ key to return to the starting letters layers.

Tablet Keyboard Layout

Note: Longpress keys are not currently visible in this static documentation, and so some additional letters may be accessible through these longpress keys.

Quickstart

This keyboard is designed to work intuitively with a standard (QWERTY) keyboard. This means that the Amharic sounds in this keyboard can be found by thinking of the most similar English letters. For example, you can type selam to get ሰላም.

As you can see, each Amharic character is typed with the base consonant first and then the vowel. For example, is typed T then ie.

Examples

Keyboard Details

The Amharic keyboard uses an intuitive phonetic system where the Amharic sounds are matched to the nearest English letters. You can think of how a word sounds in Amharic and then type it out with English.

Example: typing selam produces ሰላም

Because Amharic has more sounds than English, we sometimes have to adjust this rule. For example, English does not have and the closest similar letter would be t. In this case you should type T, for capital T:

Example: typing TienaysTlN produces ጤናይስጥልኝ

Notice that we used capital N also for and we needed both ie together to make the 5th letter, . When the letter you want to type does not appear when you hit the similar sounding key in English, try using the capital next. If typing the capital does not work, then try hitting the key two times:

Example: typing sselam produces ሠላም

Example: typing SSeHey produces ፀሐይ

Next, when you need to type the extra letters of Amharic like ,, you can do so by typing an extra vowel after a u:

Example: typing mua produces

Example: typing guie produces

Finally, we must introduce a special rule for ' (apostrophe). Some words are spelt with a ሳድስ (6th) letter followed by a vowel, like ርኤ in ገብርኤል. We use the apostrophe here to type gebr'iel to make sure we get ርኤ instead of .

Example: typing mel'ak produces መልአክ

Example: typing m'eeraf produces ምዕራፍ

Type Apostrophe twice after a 6th order letter to make it appear in your document:

Example: typing mel''ak produces መል'አክ

We also use the “number sign” (“#” also know as the “hash mark”) for Ethiopic numbers, so #1 becomes and so on. If a # is needed in your document before a number, type it twice and: ##1 becomes #1. The double strike works for other punctuation as well, so typing ; once makes and a second time gives English semicolon ;.

See Typing in Amharic (English) or Typing in Amharic (Amharic) for full details on how to type all Amharic letters, numbers and punctuation.

Troubleshooting

If the characters you type or those on the On Screen Keyboard do not appear to display correctly, please read the KeymanWeb troubleshooting guide.

For any other questions, contact us.

Technical Information

System Requirements

It is recommended that you use an English QWERTY hardware keyboard with this keyboard.

Unicode Version

This keyboard complies with Unicode 4.1

Version History

Version 3.1, 12 Nov 2022
Lighter CSS with wildcard selectors.
Version 3.0, 22 Oct 2022
Dynamic modifier key updates.
Version 2.3, 22 Oct 2022
Fixes to several problems with vowel input for touch platform.
Version 2.2, 19 Jul 2021
Extensions for Unicode 14
Addition of the Abyssinica SIL (Connected)
Version 2.1, 11 Apr 2021
CSS Colored keys.
Version 2.0, 1 Dec 2020
Addition of new style touch keyboard.
Version 1.9, 22 Jan 2020
Package migration to Abyssinica SIL 2.000
Version 1.8, 9 Mar 2019
Fix to recognize apostrophe after Salis forms.
Version 1.7, 1 Dec 2018
The apostrophe composition stopper added between lone vowels.
Version 1.6, 6 Sep 2018
The apostrophe composition stopper added after Ka'ib and Salis forms to support some special case words.
Version 1.5, 16 May 2018
Hashmark (#) replaces apostrophe for Ethiopic numeral composition to avoid "smart quotes" issues.
Version 1.4, 7 May 2015
Added letters ኸ Ke ኹ Ku ኺ Ki ኻ Ka ኼ Kie ኽ K ኾ Ko to the touch layouts.

Keyboard Authorship

This keyboard was created by the Geʾez Frontier Foundation. SIL International graciously acknowledges the contribution made by the authors in developing this keyboard and making it freely available for use with Keyman Desktop and KeymanWeb. Their effort assists in enabling people to communicate in their own language.

All Documentation Versions