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A

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A

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced AY), plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey |a| and single-storey |ɑ|. The latter form is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.

Infobox

Writing system
Latin script
Type
Alphabetic
Language of origin
Latin language
Sound values
mw- [a][ɑ][ɒ][æ][ə][ɛ][oː][ɔ][e][ʕ][ʌ] [ɐ]/eɪ/
In Unicode
U 0041, U 0061
Alphabetical position
1
Development
Α α𐌀A a
Time period
c. 700 BCE – present
Descendants
ÆÄÂⱭɅⱯªÅ₳@Ⓐⓐ⒜🅰
Sisters
𐌰АӘӐא ا ܐࠀ𐎀ℵአءԱ աઅअঅ
Associated graphs
a(x), ae, eau, au
Writing direction
Left-to-right

Tables

· History
Egyptian
Proto-Sinaitic
Proto-Canaanite
Phoenician
Western Greek
Etruscan
Latin
Pronunciation of ⟨a⟩ by language · Pronunciation
Standard Chinese (pinyin)
Standard Chinese (pinyin)
Orthography
Standard Chinese (pinyin)
Phonemes
/a/
English
English
Orthography
English
Phonemes
/æ/, /ɑː/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/, /ɛː/, /eɪ/, /ə/
French
French
Orthography
French
Phonemes
/a/, /ɑ/
German
German
Orthography
German
Phonemes
/a/, /aː/
Portuguese
Portuguese
Orthography
Portuguese
Phonemes
/a/, /ɐ/
Saanich
Saanich
Orthography
Saanich
Phonemes
/e/
Spanish
Spanish
Orthography
Spanish
Phonemes
/a/
Turkish
Turkish
Orthography
Turkish
Phonemes
/a/
Orthography
Phonemes
Standard Chinese (pinyin)
/a/
English
/æ/, /ɑː/, /ɒ/, /ɔː/, /ɛː/, /eɪ/, /ə/
French
/a/, /ɑ/
German
/a/, /aː/
Portuguese
/a/, /ɐ/
Saanich
/e/
Spanish
/a/
Turkish
/a/
Cross-linguistic variation of ⟨a⟩ pronunciation · Pronunciation
[a]
[a]
Phone
[a]
Orthography
Chuvash, Croatian, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Stavangersk Norwegian, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Utrecht Dutch
[aː]
[aː]
Phone
[aː]
Orthography
Dutch (doubled), German
[a̠]
[a̠]
Phone
[a̠]
Orthography
Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Spanish
[a̠ː]
[a̠ː]
Phone
[a̠ː]
Orthography
New Zealand English, Lithuanian, Limburgish (doubled), Luxembourgish
[ä]
[ä]
Phone
[ä]
Orthography
Catalan, Czech, French, Northern England English, Terengganu Malay, Polish
[äː]
[äː]
Phone
[äː]
Orthography
West Frisian (doubled)
[ɑ]
[ɑ]
Phone
[ɑ]
Orthography
Bashkir, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Kaingang, Limburgish, Norwegian, Russian, West Frisian
[ɑː]
[ɑː]
Phone
[ɑː]
Orthography
Afrikaans (doubled), Danish, German, Southern England English, Kurdish, Norwegian
[ɑ̝]
[ɑ̝]
Phone
[ɑ̝]
Orthography
Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Luxembourgish
[ɒ]
[ɒ]
Phone
[ɒ]
Orthography
Southern England English, Hungarian, Kedah Malay
[ɒː]
[ɒː]
Phone
[ɒː]
Orthography
Hungarian
[ɒ̜ː]
[ɒ̜ː]
Phone
[ɒ̜ː]
Orthography
Swedish
[ɒ̝ː]
[ɒ̝ː]
Phone
[ɒ̝ː]
Orthography
Maastrichtian Limburgish, Ulster Irish
[æ]
[æ]
Phone
[æ]
Orthography
Danish, English, Russian, Zeta–Raška Serbian
[ɐ]
[ɐ]
Phone
[ɐ]
Orthography
Australian English, Bulgarian, Central Catalan, Emilian, Galician, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Tagalog, Ukrainian
[ɐ̝]
[ɐ̝]
Phone
[ɐ̝]
Orthography
Mapudungun
[ɛ]
[ɛ]
Phone
[ɛ]
Orthography
New Zealand English, Perak Malay
[ɜ]
[ɜ]
Phone
[ɜ]
Orthography
Chemnitz German, Transylvanian Romanian
[ʌ]
[ʌ]
Phone
[ʌ]
Orthography
Chemnitz German
[ɔː]
[ɔː]
Phone
[ɔː]
Orthography
Southern England English
[ə]
[ə]
Phone
[ə]
Orthography
English, Eastern Catalan
[e]
[e]
Phone
[e]
Orthography
Saanich
[eɪ]
[eɪ]
Phone
[eɪ]
Orthography
English
Phone
Orthography
[a]
Chuvash, Croatian, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Stavangersk Norwegian, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Utrecht Dutch
[aː]
Dutch (doubled), German
[a̠]
Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Spanish
[a̠ː]
New Zealand English, Lithuanian, Limburgish (doubled), Luxembourgish
[ä]
Catalan, Czech, French, Northern England English, Terengganu Malay, Polish
[äː]
West Frisian (doubled)
[ɑ]
Bashkir, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Kaingang, Limburgish, Norwegian, Russian, West Frisian
[ɑː]
Afrikaans (doubled), Danish, German, Southern England English, Kurdish, Norwegian
[ɑ̝]
Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Luxembourgish
[ɒ]
Southern England English, Hungarian, Kedah Malay
[ɒː]
Hungarian
[ɒ̜ː]
Swedish
[ɒ̝ː]
Maastrichtian Limburgish, Ulster Irish
[æ]
Danish, English, Russian, Zeta–Raška Serbian
[ɐ]
Australian English, Bulgarian, Central Catalan, Emilian, Galician, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Tagalog, Ukrainian
[ɐ̝]
Mapudungun
[ɛ]
New Zealand English, Perak Malay
[ɜ]
Chemnitz German, Transylvanian Romanian
[ʌ]
Chemnitz German
[ɔː]
Southern England English
[ə]
English, Eastern Catalan
[e]
Saanich
[eɪ]
English

References

  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.
  2. Encyclopædia Britannica
    https://www.britannica.com/topic/Latin-alphabet
  3. Simpson & Weiner 1989, p. 1.
  4. McCarter 1974, p. 54.
  5. Hoiberg 2010, p. 1.
  6. Hall-Quest 1997, p. 1.
  7. The manual of scientific style: a guide for authors, editors, and researchers
  8. Diringer 2000, p. 1.
  9. Multisensory Research
    https://sussex.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/A_is_for_apple_the_role_of_letter-word_associations_in_the_development_of_grapheme-colour_synaesthesia/23444111/1/files/41154893.pdf
  10. Gelb & Whiting 1998, p. 45
  11. "Letter frequency (English)"
    http://en.algoritmy.net/article/40379/Letter-frequency-English
  12. "Corpus de Thomas Tempé"
    https://web.archive.org/web/20070930194046/http://gpl.insa-lyon.fr/Dvorak-Fr/CorpusDeThomasTemp%C3%A9
  13. Secret and Urgent: The story of codes and ciphers
    https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/795065
  14. "Frequência da ocorrência de letras no Português"
    https://web.archive.org/web/20090803182254/http://www.numaboa.com/criptografia/criptoanalise/310-Frequencia-no-Portugues
  15. Tom Sorell, Descartes: A Very Short Introduction, (2000). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 19.
  16. Ciani & Sheldon 2010, pp. 99–100.
  17. The Bra Book: The Fashion Formula to Finding the Perfect Bra
  18. L2/04-132 Proposal to Add Additional Phonetic Characters to the UCS
    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf
  19. L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet Characters for the UCS
    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf
  20. L2/04-191: Proposal to Encode Six Indo-Europeanist Phonetic Characters in the UCS
    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04191-n2788-laryngeals.pdf
  21. L2/11-202: Revised Proposal to Encode "Teuthonista" Phonetic Characters in the UCS
    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf
  22. L2/17-076R2: Revised Proposal for the Encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic Characters
    https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17076r2-n4792r2-egyptological-yod.pdf
  23. Sign, Symbol, and Script
  24. "Hebrew Lesson of the Week: The Letter Aleph"
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/hebrew-lesson-of-the-week-letter-aleph/
  25. Encyclopædia Britannica
    https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alphabet
  26. Universal Palaeography
    https://books.google.com/books?id=n2QWAAAAYAAJ&q=coptic+alphabet&pg=PA123
  27. American Journal of Archaeology
    https://books.google.com/books?id=fwAoAQAAIAAJ&q=old+italic+greek+alphabet&pg=PA534
  28. Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems
    https://books.google.com/books?id=Lv4sDwAAQBAJ&q=old+italic+script+greek&pg=PA96
  29. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction
    https://books.google.com/books?id=bSxHgej4tKMC&q=Runic+developed+from+old+italic&pg=PA349
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