ዐ (ʿa)
The Ge'ez letter ዐ is called ዐይን (ʿayn). It represents a “voiced pharyngeal fricative”, which is a sound produced by narrowing the vocal tract. Nowadays, the ዐ is just prounouced like a glottal stop, as in the middle of the English expression "uh oh".¶ Its shape ዐ is derived from the epigraphic character: 𐩲. It correlates to the Arabic letter ع, the Syriac letter ܥ, and the Hebrew letter ע .
Ge’ez words starting with ዐ include ዓለም(ʿālam) “world”, ዕበይ (ʿəbay) “greatness”, and ዐንዛሪ (ʿanzāri) “musician”.
