Ą
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Ą (
("little tail") and usually, except in modern Lithuanian and Polish, denotes a nasal a sound.Polish
In the Polish alphabet, ą comes after a, but never appears at the beginning of a word. Originally, ą used to represent a nasal a sound, but in modern times, its pronunciation has shifted to a nasal o sound. The letter does not have one determined pronunciation and instead, its pronunciation is dependent on the sounds it is followed by.
Pronunciation
Position | Pronunciation | Example | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phonemic | Phonetic | Orthography | Pronunciation
(phonemic) |
Pronunciation
(phonetic) | |
ą + f, w, s, z, sz, ż, rz, h, ch; word-finally | /ɔŋ/ | [ɔw̃] | ⓘ ('they are') | /sɔŋ/ | [sɔw̃] |
ą + k, g | [ɔŋ] | ⓘ ('flour') | /ˈmɔŋka/ | [ˈmɔŋka] | |
ą + t, d, c, dz, cz, dż | /ɔn/ | [ɔn̪] | ⓘ ('error') | /bwɔnt/ | [bwɔn̪t̪] |
ą + p, b | /ɔm/ | [ɔm] | ⓘ ('tooth') | /zɔmp/ | [zɔmp] |
ą + ś, ź, ć, dź, si, zi, ci, dzi | /ɔɲ/ | [ɔj̃] | ⓘ ('be') | /bɔɲt͡ɕ/ | [bɔj̃t͡ɕ] |
ą + l, ł | /ɔ/ | [ɔ] | wziął ('he took') | /vʑɔw/ | [vʑɔw] |
In some dialects, word-final ą is also pronounced as /ɔm/; thus, robią is occasionally pronounced as [ˈrɔbjɔm].
History
Polish ą sound evolved from a long nasal a sound of medieval Polish into a short nasal o sound in the modern language. The medieval vowel, along with its short counterpart, evolved in turn from the merged nasal *ę and *ǫ of Late
Early Proto-Slavic | *em/*en/*im/*in and *am/*an/*um/*un |
Late Proto-Slavic | /ẽ/ and /õ/, transcribed ⟨ę⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩ |
Medieval Polish | short and long /ã/, sometimes written approx. ⟨ø⟩ |
Modern Polish | short /ã/ → /ɛŋ/, /ɛn/, /ɛm/…, written ⟨ę⟩ long /ã/ → /ɔŋ/, /ɔn/, /ɔm/…, written ⟨ą⟩ |
Another explanation is connected to the adoption of the Old Czech-style orthography of the
Alternations
The letter often alternates with ę.
- 'tooth': ząb → zęby ('teeth'),
- 'snake': wąż → węże ('snakes')
- 'husband' in )
- 'weight': ciężar → ciążyć ('to weigh down, to be a burden'),
- 'month': miesiąc → miesięczny ('monthly'),
- 'a judge': sędzia → sądzić ('to judge, think')
- 'row' in )
However, in words derived from rząd ('government'), the vowel does not change. Thus, rządu (genitive of rząd) retains the ą, e.g., rozporządzenie rządu ('government's ordinance').
Lithuanian
In modern
The letter is most often found at the end of the noun to construct an ending of
It is also used when converting present tense verbs into participles, e.g., (matąs (somebody who is seeing (matyti) right now).
Nasal an forms are now pronounced [aː], as in sąrašas (list) and san-grąža (turnover, return).
In some cases, ą, ę and į (but never ė) may be used in different forms, as in tąsa (extension) – tęsia (extends) – tįsoti (to lie extended). Finally, some verbs have it in the middle of a word but only in the present tense, e.g., (bąla (is getting white), but not pabalo (has become white).[2]
The letter can also be found at the beginning of several words, e.g., ąsotis [aːsoːtis] (jug).
The Americas
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008) |
In some indigenous languages of the Americas, the letter denotes a nasal a sound:
Elfdalian
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2015) |
The Elfdalian alphabet contains the letters that occur in the Swedish alphabet as well as various letters with ogonek to denote nasality. Ą and ą denote a nasal a sound.
Reconstructed language
Scholars who have reconstructed the Proto-Germanic language (the ancestor of all modern Germanic languages, spoken c. 500 BC – AD 500) use the letter ą to denote a nasal vowel.
Computing codes
Preview | Ą | ą | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH OGONEK | LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH OGONEK | ||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 260 | U+0104 | 261 | U+0105 |
UTF-8 | 196 132 | C4 84 | 196 133 | C4 85 |
Numeric character reference | Ą |
Ą |
ą |
ą |
Named character reference | Ą | ą |
See also
- Ę
- Ogonek
- Kashubian alphabet
- Lithuanian alphabet
- Elfdalian alphabet
- Polish phonology
- Polish alphabet
- Yus