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The third symbol of the Amharic alphabet is called HÄWT and the pronunciation is like the letter H in English. The printed letter is similar to a trident pointing down, same as the handwritten version. 
This symbol is pronounced exactly as the first symbol. As a matter of fact, there are four letters H and three of them have the same pronunciation, only the fourth differs a little. This means that in this language some consonants can be represented by more than one letter, as in this case. Sometimes a word is written with one of the letters and another word with a different character, simply as a matter of preference or tradition. The letters that have the same sound are called homophones and the reason to have 3 different versions for the same sound is that originally they represented different sounds but over time they merged together in Amharic. In Tigrinya for example, some of these characters still have different sounds.
Regarding the vowels, the first order and the fourth have the same A as in the first symbol.
The three letters H that have the same pronunciation are:

first symbol	third symbol	thirteenth symbol
(ha halleta)	(ha hamär)	(ha bïzuhan)

To differentiate them each of them has its own name.

Finally the fourth H that has a different pronunciation is the eighteenth symbol and is drawn like this:   but I’m going to talk about it later.
 

Returning to the third symbol, here is the table with the writing, pronunciation and examples.The animations were made according to the instructions in the book Writing and Reading Amharic and the sounds are from the Amharic Online website. Phonetic symbols according to David Appleyard.

print	phonetics	how to write it and say it	examples
	ha		(hakim) doctor
	hu as in look		(hudade) Lent
	hi as in leak		(hisab) bill, account
	ha as in lap		(nïsïha) penitence
	he as in lend		(hewan) Eve
	hï		(hïgg) law
	ho

Finally all the sequence in alphabetical order :

Besides these seven consonants, there is an eighth that is formed with the union of the sounds H and WA and you write it like this: (hwa), not used  in contemporary Amharic. But for now I will only mention it and in a later post I will list all of the consonants made with the WA sound.

Here is a quiz for the third letter of the alphabet:

Next week, the letter M.

AliciA