Help:Multilingual support (Ethiopic)
The Ge'ez alphabet (Ethiopic script), is used in East Africa for the Agaw languages, Amharic language, Gurage languages, and the Tigrinya language among others. The syllabary evolved from the script for classical Ge'ez, which is now a liturgical language.
Macintosh OS X has supported Ethiopic since 2010 with the 'Kefa' font. The Ge'ez alphabet is not a standard font installation on most computers and must be added by the user. In order to view Ethiopic fonts, you only need a unicode Ethiopic font in your computer's font folder. Once the font is installed, you may need to restart your Web browser in order to make it recognize the newly installed fonts.
- On Windows systems, the fonts folder is normally C:\Windows\Fonts.
- On Macintosh computers, drag and drop the font into /Library/Fonts.
- On Debian-based Linux systems, enter sudo apt-get install ttf-sil-abyssinica in a terminal, then restart your browser.
Free Ethiopic fonts and keyboard downloads
Only a font is needed to view Ethiopic script. A keyboard driver is required only if you also wish to write text in the script.
- Keyboard drivers
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- Self installer for font, amharic keyboard, manual — Note this is only free for personal use.
- User:Keymanweb/Keymanweb — Web keyboard integrated into Wikipedia.
- Washra (package of several fonts and a virtual keyboard)
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- Home page — With install instructions.
- Download fonts only — On Windows, unzip the .ttf file to any folder on your disk, then right-click to install it, or move it to the special "C:\Windows\FontsFonts" folder using the Explorer (do not extract it there directly, or it won't be installed correctly).
- GF Zemen
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- Self installer for Windows 9x/Me/NT/2K/XP/Vista/7)
- Download font only — On Windows, save the .ttf file to any folder on your disk, then right-click to install it or move it to the special "C:\Windows\FontsFonts" folder using the Explorer (do not extract it there directly, or it won't be installed correctly).
- WAZU JAPAN
- SIL's AbyssinicaSIL
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- Download font — High quality font.
- Ethiopia Jiret
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- Self installer for Windows.
- Download font only — On Windows, unzip the .ttf file to any folder on your disk, then right-click to install it, or move it to the Windows special "Fonts" folder using the Explorer (do not extract it there directly, or it won't be installed correctly).
- Ethiozena's Typing Help
- TITUS Cyberbit
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- Home page — With download and install instructions.
- freeSerif
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- zip file at Download font — On Windows, unzip the .ttf files to any folder on your disk, then right-click the .ttf files to install them, or move them to the special "C:\Windows\FontsFonts" folder using the Explorer (do not extract it there directly, or it won't be installed correctly).
- Code 2000 (Shareware)
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- Home page – font for several dozens of scripts from around the world in one huge file, but may cause issues for Windows.
- GeezEdit Online Amharic (Free)
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- [1] - On Windows and Mac, type and search in Amharic. Patented technology allows typing beyond the method available for English. No need for keyboard drivers. Just copy and paste your document to Wiki.
Commercial software
- software at http://www.amharicsoftwares.com/
- Omniglot
- WAZU JAPAN
- Keyman Desktop + Ethiopic keyboards
- GeezWord
- GeezEdit Ethiopic, for use in Windows XP to Windows 10, U.S. Patent No. 9,000,957
- [2] GeezEdit App for use in Apple's iPhone 4s, 5, 6, iPad and the like. The typing method is the same with the free online GeezEdit and GeezEdit 2.0 Windows versions. The classic font has new glyphs such as Ethiopic zero, Ethiopian Birr sign, etc.
Known compatibility issues
- RaghuHindi (raghindi.ttf) will cause bold and/or italic Ethiopic text to not show up. To fix the problem, just remove the font.
