ሠ (ša)
The Ge'ez letter ሠ is called ሠውት (šawt). It originally represented a “voiceless alveolar lateral fricative”, which is a cross between the sounds of <l> and <sh> in English. Nowadays, it is pronounced like <s> in the English words sun, sea, and sweet. It is sometimes called ሠ ንጉሥ (ša nəguš) "the 's' [in the word] king" to distinguish it from the other s sound.
Its shape ሠ is derived from the epigraphic character: 𐩦. It correlates to the Arabic letter ش, the Syriac letter ܫ, and the Hebrew letter ש.
Ge’ez words starting with ሠ include ሥላሴ (šəllase) “Trinity”, ሥምረት (šəmrat) “benevolence”, and ሠናይ (šannay) “beautiful”.
