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A
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This article is about the letter of the alphabet. For the English indefinite article, see English
articles § Indefinite article. For other uses, see A (disambiguation).
For technical reasons, "A#" redirects here. For A-sharp, see A-sharp (disambiguation).

Aa

(See below)

Usage

Writing system Latin script

Type Alphabetic and Logographic

Language of origin Latin language

Phonetic usage [a]

[ɑ]

[ɒ]

[æ]

[ə]

[ɛ]

[oː]

[ɔ]

[e]

[ʕ]

[ʌ]

/eɪ/

Unicode value U+0041, U+0061

Alphabetical position 1

Numerical value: 1

History

Development


o


 Αα
 𐌀


 Aa

Time period ~-700 to present

Descendants •Æ

•Ä

•Â

•Ɑ

•Λ
•Ɐ

•ª
 •Å

•₳

•@
•Ⓐ
•ⓐ

•⒜

•🅰

Sisters 𐌀

‫א‬
‫ا‬

‫ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬

ℵ
‫ܐ‬

‫ء‬
Աա

‫ܐ‬

‫ܐ‬
‫ܐ‬

Variations (See below)

Other

Other letters commonly a(x), ae, eau

used with

Associated numbers 1

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols.Without

proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or
other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory
guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
A (named /ˈeɪ/, plural As, A's, as, a's or aes[nb 1]) is the
first letter and the first vowel of the modern English
alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet.[1] It is similar to
the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives.[2] The
uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a
triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The
lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double- ISO basic
storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in
handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to
Latin alphabet
be read by children, and is also found in italic type.
Aa Bb Cc Dd
In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", is an indefinite
Ee Ff Gg Hh
article.
Ii Jj Kk Ll
Mm Nn Oo Pp
Qq Rr Ss Tt
Contents Uu Vv Ww Xx
Yy Zz
 1History
o 1.1Typographic variants  v
 2Use in writing systems
 t
o 2.1English
o 2.2Other languages  e
o 2.3Other systems
 3Other uses
 4Related characters
o 4.1Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
o 4.2Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
o 4.3Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
 5Computing codes
 6Other representations
 7Notes
 8Footnotes
 9References
 10External links

History

Latin
Boeoti Gree
Phoenicia Greek Etrusca Roman/Cyril 300
Egyptian Creta Semiti an k
n n lic AD
n c 800– Unci
aleph Alpha A A Unci
700 BC al
al
The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician
alphabet,[3] which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to
distinguish it from a true alphabet). In turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of
an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script[4] influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular
head with two horns extended.
By 1600 BC, the Phoenician alphabet letter had a linear form that served as the base for some
later forms. Its name is thought to have corresponded closely to the Paleo-
Hebrew or Arabic aleph.

Uncial A Another Blackletter A

Blackletter A

Modern Roman A Modern Italic A Modern script A

When the ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for a letter to represent
the glottal stop—the consonant sound that the letter denoted in Phoenician and other Semitic
languages, and that was the first phoneme of the Phoenician pronunciation of the letter—so they
used their version of the sign to represent the vowel /a/, and called it by the similar name
of alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the Greek Dark Ages, dating to the 8th century
BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles
the modern capital letter, although many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of
one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set.
The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the
letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write the Latin language,
and the resulting letter was preserved in the Latin alphabet that would come to be used to write
many languages, including English.
Typographic variants

Different glyphs of the lowercase letter A.

During Roman times, there were many variant forms of the letter "A". First was the monumental
or lapidary style, which was used when inscribing on stone or other "permanent" media. There
was also a cursive style used for everyday or utilitarian writing, which was done on more
perishable surfaces. Due to the "perishable" nature of these surfaces, there are not as many
examples of this style as there are of the monumental, but there are still many surviving
examples of different types of cursive, such as majuscule cursive, minuscule cursive, and
semicursive minuscule. Variants also existed that were intermediate between the monumental
and cursive styles. The known variants include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later
semi-uncial.[5]

Typographic variants include a double-storey a and single-storey ɑ.

At the end of the Roman Empire (5th century AD), several variants of the cursive minuscule
developed through Western Europe. Among these were the semicursive minuscule of Italy,
the Merovingian script in France, the Visigothic script in Spain, and the Insularor Anglo-Irish
semi-uncial or Anglo-Saxon majuscule of Great Britain. By the 9th century, the Caroline script,
which was very similar to the present-day form, was the principal form used in book-making,
before the advent of the printing press. This form was derived through a combining of prior
forms.[5]
15th-century Italy saw the formation of the two main variants that are known today. These
variants, the Italic and Roman forms, were derived from the Caroline Script version. The Italic
form, also called script a, is used in most current handwriting and consists of a circle and vertical
stroke. This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the
hands of medieval Irish and English writers.[3] The Roman form is used in most printed material; it
consists of a small loop with an arc over it ("a").[5] Both derive from the majuscule (capital) form.
In Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop,
as demonstrated by the uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical. In
some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the
printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form.
Italic type is commonly used to mark emphasis or more generally to distinguish one part of a text
from the rest (set in Roman type). There are some other cases aside from italic type where script
a ("ɑ"), also called Latin alpha, is used in contrast with Latin "a" (such as in the International
Phonetic Alphabet).

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of the name of the letter ⟨a⟩ in European languages, note that /a/ and /aː/ can differ
phonetically between [a], [ä], [æ] and [ɑ] depending on the language.

English
Further information: Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩
In modern English orthography, the letter ⟨a⟩ represents at least seven different vowel sounds:

 the near-open front unrounded vowel /æ/ as in pad;

 the open back unrounded vowel /ɑː/ as in father, which is closer
to its original Latin and Greek sound;[4]
 the diphthong /eɪ/ as in ace and major (usually when ⟨a⟩ is
followed by one, or occasionally two, consonants and then
another vowel letter) – this results from Middle English
lengthening followed by the Great Vowel Shift;
 the modified form of the above sound that occurs before ⟨r⟩, as
in square and Mary;
 the rounded vowel of water;
 the shorter rounded vowel (not present in General American)
in was and what;[3]
 a schwa, in many unstressed syllables, as
in about, comma, solar.
The double ⟨aa⟩ sequence does not occur in native English words, but is found in some words
derived from foreign languages such as Aaron and aardvark.[6] However, ⟨a⟩ occurs in many
common digraphs, all with their own sound or sounds, particularly ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨aw⟩, ⟨ay⟩, ⟨ea⟩ and
⟨oa⟩.
⟨a⟩ is the third-most-commonly used letter in English (after ⟨e⟩ and ⟨t⟩),[7] and the second most
common in Spanish and French. In one study, on average, about 3.68% of letters used in
English texts tend to be ⟨a⟩, while the number is 6.22% in Spanish and 3.95% in French.[8]
Other languages
In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨a⟩ denotes an open unrounded vowel, such
as /a/, /ä/, or /ɑ/. An exception is Saanich, in which ⟨a⟩ (and the glyph Á) stands for a close-mid
front unrounded vowel /e/.
Other systems
In phonetic and phonemic notation:

 in the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨a⟩ is used for the open

front unrounded vowel, ⟨ä⟩ is used for the open central
unrounded vowel, and ⟨ɑ⟩ is used for the open back unrounded
vowel.
 in X-SAMPA, ⟨a⟩ is used for the open front unrounded vowel and
⟨A⟩ is used for the open back unrounded vowel.

Other uses
Main article: A (disambiguation)
In algebra, the letter a along with other letters at the beginning of the alphabet is used to
represent known quantities, whereas the letters at the end of the alphabet (x, y, z) are used to
denote unknown quantities.
In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to denote segments, lines, rays, etc.[5] A capital A is
also typically used as one of the letters to represent an angle in a triangle, the lowercase a
representing the side opposite angle A.[4]
"A" is often used to denote something or someone of a better or more prestigious quality or
status: A-, A or A+, the best grade that can be assigned by teachers for students' schoolwork; "A
grade" for clean restaurants; A-list celebrities, etc. Such associations can have
a motivating effect, as exposure to the letter A has been found to improve performance, when
compared with other letters.[9]
"A" is used as a prefix on some words, such as asymmetry, to mean "not" or "without" (from
Greek).
In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", is an indefinite article.
Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe,[4] or a small cup size in
a brassiere.[citation needed]

Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

 Æ æ : Latin AE ligature
 A with diacritics: Å å Ǻ ǻ Ḁ ḁ ẚ Ă ă Ặ ặ Ắ ắ Ằ ằ Ẳ ẳ Ẵ ẵ Ȃ ȃ Â â Ậ
ậẤấẦầẪẫẨẩẢảǍǎȺⱥȦȧǠǡẠạÄäǞǟÀàȀȁÁáĀ
ā Ā̀ ā̀ Ã ã Ą ą Ą́ ą́ Ą̃ ą̃ A̲ a̲ ᶏ [10]

 Phonetic alphabet symbols related to A (the International

Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms
are used in some other writing systems):
o Ɑ ɑ : Latin letter alpha / script A, which represents an open
back unrounded vowel in the IPA
o ᶐ : Latin small letter alpha with retroflex hook[10]
o Ɐ ɐ : Turned A, which represents a near-open central
vowel in the IPA
o Λ ʌ : Turned V (also called a wedge, a caret, or a hat),
which represents an open-mid back unrounded vowel in the
IPA
o Ɒ ɒ : Turned alpha / script A, which represents an open
back rounded vowel in the IPA
o ᶛ : Modifier letter small turned alpha[10]
 o ᴀ : Small capital A, an obsolete or non-standard symbol in
the International Phonetic Alphabet used to represent
various sounds (mainly open vowels)
o ᴬ ᵃ ᵄ : Modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic
Alphabet (UPA)[11]
o ₐ : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies[12]
o ꬱ : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in
the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system[13]
o Ꞻ Ꞻ : Glottal A, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic[14]
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

 ª : an ordinal indicator
 Å : Ångström sign
 ∀ : a turned capital letter A, used in predicate logic to
specify universal quantification ("for all")
 @ : At sign
 ₳ : Argentine austral
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

 Ꞻ : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols

originally derive[15]
o Α α : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters
derive[16]
 А а : Cyrillic letter A[17]
 Ⲁ ⲁ : Coptic letter Alpha[18]
 𐌀 : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin
A[19][20]
 ᚨ : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from
old Italic A[21]
 𐌀 : Gothic letter aza/asks[citation needed]

Computing codes

Character A a

Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A LATIN SMALL LETTER A

Encodings decimal hex decimal hex

Unicode 65 U+0041 97 U+0061

UTF-8 65 41 97 61
Numeric character reference A A a a

EBCDIC family 193 C1 129 81

ASCII 1 65 41 97 61

1
Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows,
ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations
NATO phonetic Morse code

Alpha ·–

American manual Braille

Signal flag Flag semaphore
alphabet (ASLfingerspelling) dots-1

Notes
1. ^ Aes is the plural of the name of the letter. The plural of the
letter itself is rendered As, A's, as, or a's.[1]

Footnotes
1. ^ Jump up to:a b Simpson & Weiner 1989, p. 1
2. ^ McCarter 1974, p. 54
3. ^ Jump up to:a b c Hoiberg 2010, p. 1
4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Hall-Quest 1997, p. 1
5. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Diringer 2000, p. 1
6. ^ Gelb & Whiting 1998, p. 45
7. ^ Anon 2004
8. ^ Anon 2006
9. ^ Ciani & Sheldon 2010, pp. 99–100
10. ^ Jump up to:a b c Constable, Peter (19 April 2004). "L2/04-132
Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the
UCS" (PDF).
11. ^ Everson, Michael; et al. (20 March 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic
Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
12. ^ Anderson, Deborah; Everson, Michael (7 June
2004). "L2/04-191: Proposal to encode six Indo-Europeanist
phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF).
 13. ^ Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-
Vogt, Eveline (2 June 2011). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to
encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF).
14. ^ Suignard, Michel (9 May 2017). "L2/17-076R2: Revised
proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and
Ugaritic characters" (PDF).
15. ^ Jensen, Hans, Sign, Symbol, and Script, G.P. Putman's
Sons, New York, 1969.
16. ^ "Hebrew lesson of the week: The letter Aleph". The Times
of Israel. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
17. ^ "Cyrillic alphabet". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25
May 2018.
18. ^ Silvestre, Joseph Balthaszar; (Jacques-Joseph), M.
Champollion-Figeac; Champollion-Figeac, Aimé Louis
(1850). Universal Palaeography. H.G. Bohn.
19. ^ American journal of archaeology. 1891.
20. ^ Steele, Philippa (31 August 2017). Understanding Relations
Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems. Oxbow
Books. ISBN 9781785706479.
21. ^ IV, Benjamin W. Fortson (7 September 2011). Indo-
European Language and Culture: An Introduction. John Wiley
& Sons. ISBN 9781444359688.

References
 Anon (2004). "English Letter Frequency". Math Explorer's
Club. Cornell University. Archived from the original on 28
May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
 Anon (2006). "Percentages of Letter frequencies per
Thousand words". Trinity College. Archived from the
original on 25 January 2007. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
 Ciani, Keith D.; Sheldon, Kennon M. (2010). "A versus F:
The effects of implicit letter priming on cognitive
performance". British Journal of Educational
Psychology. 80 (1): 99–
119. doi:10.1348/000709909X466479. PMID 19622200.
 Diringer, David (2000). "A". In Bayer, Patricia
(ed.). Encyclopedia Americana. I: A-Anjou (First ed.).
Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-7172-0133-
4.
 Gelb, I. J.; Whiting, R. M. (1998). "A". In Ranson, K. Anne
(ed.). Academic American Encyclopedia. I: A–Ang (First
ed.). Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-7172-
2068-7.
 Hall-Quest, Olga Wilbourne (1997). "A". In Johnston,
Bernard (ed.). Collier's Encyclopedia. I: A to Ameland (First
ed.). New York, NY: P.F. Collier.
 Hoiberg, Dale H., ed. (2010). "A". Encyclopædia Britannica.
1: A-ak–Bayes. Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica,
Inc. ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8.
 McCarter, P. Kyle (September 1974). "The Early Diffusion of
the Alphabet". The Biblical Archaeologist. 37 (3): 54–
68. doi:10.2307/3210965. JSTOR 3210965.
 Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E.S.C., eds. (1989). "A". The Oxford
English Dictionary. I: A–Bazouki (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861213-1.
 External links
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to A.

Look up A or a in
Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.

 History of the Alphabet

 Texts on Wikisource:
o "A" in A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel
Johnson
o "A" . The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
o "A" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
o "A" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.
o "A" . Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.

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Letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet

Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv W
Letter A with diacritics
Àà Ăă Ắắ Ằằ Ẵẵ Ẳẳ Ââ Ấấ Ầầ Ẫẫ Ẩẩ Ǎǎ Åå Ǻǻ Ää Ǟǟ Ãã Ȧȧ Ǡǡ Ąą Ą́ą́
A̋a̋ Ȃȃ Ạạ Ặặ Ậậ Ḁḁ Ⱥⱥ ‫ܐܐ‬ ᶏ ẚ

 ch

Digraphs cz
 dž
  dz

 gh

 ij

 ll

 ly

 nh

 ny

 sh

 sz

 th

 dzs
Trigraphs
 eau

etragraphs ough

entagraphs tzsch

ERTY

ERTZ

RTY

ak

mak

EC 646

ode

ern Latin character sets

mposed Latin characters in Unicode

s used in mathematics

 Diacritics

 Palaeography
Categories:
 ISO basic Latin letters
 Vowel letters
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