A

First letter of the Latin alphabet

A
A a
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabet
Language of origin	Latin language
Phonetic usage	[a] [ɑ] [ɒ] [æ] [ə] [ɛ] [oː] [ɔ] [e] [ʕ] [/ʌ/] /eɪ/
Unicode codepoint	U+0041, U+0061
Alphabetical position	1 Numerical value: 1
History
Development	Α α 𐌀 A a
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• Æ  • Ä  • Â  • Ɑ  • Ʌ  • Ɐ  • ª  • Å  • ₳  • @  • Ⓐ  • ⓐ  • ⒜  • 🅰
Sisters	𐌰 А Я Ә Ӑ א ا ܐ ࠀ 𐎀 ℵ አ ء Ա ա અ अ অ
Variations	(See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used with	a(x), ae, eau
Associated numbers	1
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

ISO basicLatin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
v t e

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet.^[1][2] Its name in English is a (pronounced /ˈeɪ/), plural aes.^{[nb 1]} It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives.^[3] 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-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter 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.

In the English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", are indefinite articles.

History

Egyptian	Phoenician aleph	Semitic	Greek Alpha	Etruscan A	Latin/ Cyrillic A	Boeotian 800–700 BC	Greek Uncial	Latin 300 AD Uncial

The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet,^[4] 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^[5] influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended.

Blackletter A	Uncial A	Another 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.^[6]

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 Insular or 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.^[6]

Road sign in Ireland, showing the Irish "Latin alpha" form of "a" in lower and upper case forms.

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.^[4] The Roman form is used in most printed material; it consists of a small loop with an arc over it ("a").^[6] 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. Graphic designers refer to the Italic and Roman forms as "single decker a" and "double decker a" respectively.

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

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;^[5]
• 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;^[4]
• 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.^[7] 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⟩),^[8] 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

In algebra, the letter a along with various other letters of the alphabet is often used to denote a variable, with various conventional meanings in different areas of mathematics. Moreover, in 1637, René Descartes "invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations by x, y, and z, and knowns by a, b, and c",^[9] and this convention is still often followed, especially in elementary algebra.

In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to denote segments, lines, rays, etc.^[6] 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.^[5]

"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.^[10]

"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, used to introduce noun phrases.

Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe,^[5] or a small cup size in a brassiere.^[11]

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 ậ Ấ ấ Ầ ầ Ẫ ẫ Ẩ ẩ Ả ả Ǎ ǎ Ⱥ ⱥ Ȧ ȧ Ǡ ǡ Ạ ạ Ä ä Ǟ ǟ À à Ȁ ȁ Á á Ā ā Ā̀ ā̀ Ã ã Ą ą Ą́ ą́ Ą̃ ą̃ A̲ a̲ ᶏ^[12]
• Phonetic alphabet symbols related to A (the International Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems):
  • Ɑ ɑ : Latin letter alpha / script A, which represents an open back unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • ᶐ : Latin small letter alpha with retroflex hook^[12]
  • Ɐ ɐ : Turned A, which represents a near-open central vowel in the IPA
  • Λ ʌ : Turned V (also called a wedge, a caret, or a hat), which represents an open-mid back unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • Ɒ ɒ : Turned alpha / script A, which represents an open back rounded vowel in the IPA
  • ᶛ : Modifier letter small turned alpha^[12]
  • ᴀ : Small capital A, an obsolete or non-standard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to represent various sounds (mainly open vowels)
  • ^{A a} ᵄ : Modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA)^[13] (sometimes encoded with Unicode subscripts and superscripts)
  • _a : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies^[14]
  • ꬱ : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system^[15]
  • Ꞻ ꞻ : Glottal A, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic^[16]

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

• 𐤀 : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols originally derive^[17]
  • Α α : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters derive^[18]
    • А а : Cyrillic letter A^[19]
    • Ⲁ ⲁ : Coptic letter Alpha^[20]
    • 𐌀 : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin A^[21][22]
      • ᚨ : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A^[23]
    • 𐌰 : Gothic letter aza/asks^[24]
• Ա ա : Armenian letter Ayb

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	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	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-1 Unified English Braille

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.^[2]

Footnotes

1. "Latin alphabet | Definition, Description, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica.
2. Simpson & Weiner 1989, p. 1
3. McCarter 1974, p. 54
4. Hoiberg 2010, p. 1
5. Hall-Quest 1997, p. 1
6. Diringer 2000, p. 1
7. Gelb & Whiting 1998, p. 45
8. Trinity College 2006
9. Tom Sorell, Descartes: A Very Short Introduction, (2000). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 19.
10. Ciani & Sheldon 2010, pp. 99–100
11. Luciani, Jené (2009). The Bra Book: The Fashion Formula to Finding the Perfect Bra. Dallas, TX: Benbella Books. p. 13. ISBN 9781933771946. OCLC 317453115.
12. Constable, Peter (19 April 2004), L2/04-132 Proposal to Add Additional Phonetic Characters to the UCS(PDF), archived(PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017, retrieved 24 March 2018 – via www.unicode.org
13. Everson, Michael; et al. (20 March 2002), L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet Characters for the UCS(PDF), archived(PDF) from the original on 19 February 2018, retrieved 24 March 2018 – via www.unicode.org
14. Anderson, Deborah; Everson, Michael (7 June 2004), L2/04-191: Proposal to Encode Six Indo-Europeanist Phonetic Characters in the UCS(PDF), archived(PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017, retrieved 24 March 2018 – via www.unicode.org
15. 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), archived(PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017, retrieved 24 March 2018 – via www.unicode.org
16. Suignard, Michel (9 May 2017), L2/17-076R2: Revised Proposal for the Encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic Characters(PDF), archived(PDF) from the original on 30 March 2019, retrieved 8 March 2019 – via www.unicode.org
17. Jensen, Hans (1969). Sign, Symbol, and Script. New York: G.P. Putman's Sons.
18. "Hebrew Lesson of the Week: The Letter Aleph". 17 February 2013. Archived from the original on 26 May 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2018 – via The Times of Israel.
19. "Cyrillic Alphabet". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 26 May 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
20. Silvestre, M. J. B. (1850). Universal Palaeography. Translated by Madden, Frederic. London: Henry G. Bohn.
21. Frothingham, A. L., Jr. (1891). "Italic Studies". Archaeological News. American Journal of Archaeology. 7 (4): 534. JSTOR496497. 
22. Steele, Philippa M., ed. (2017). Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems. Oxford: Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781785706479.
23. Fortson, Benjamin W. (2010). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (second ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781444359688.
24. "𐌰". Wiktionary.

References

• "English Letter Frequency". Math Explorer's Club. Cornell University. 2004. Archived from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
• "Percentages of Letter Frequencies per Thousand Words". Trinity College. 2006. 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. 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. 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 (1974). "The Early Diffusion of the Alphabet". The Biblical Archaeologist. 37 (3): 54–68. doi:10.2307/3210965. JSTOR 3210965. S2CID 126182369.
• 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

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