A

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

The earliest known ancestor of A is aleph—the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet^[4]—where it represented a glottal stop [ʔ], as Phoenician only used consonantal letters. 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.

When the

would come to be used to write many other languages, including English.

Egyptian	Proto-Sinaitic	Proto-Canaanite	Phoenician	Western Greek	Etruscan	Latin

Typographic variants

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 more permanent media. There was also a

Blackletter	Uncial
Roman	Italic	Script

At the end of the

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 ⟨ɑ⟩, also called script a, is often used in handwriting; it consists of a circle with a vertical stroke on its right. In the hands of medieval Irish and English writers, this form gradually developed from a 5th-century form resembling the Greek letter tau ⟨τ⟩.^[4] The Roman form ⟨a⟩ is found in most printed material, and consists of a small loop with an arc over it.^[6] Both derive from the majuscule form ⟨A⟩. 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.

In modern

• the near-open front unrounded vowel /æ/ as in pad
• the
  General American—which is closer to its original Latin and Greek sound^[5]
• the
  General American) in was and what^[4]
• the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔː/ in water
• the
  Middle English lengthening followed by the Great Vowel Shift
• a
  schwa
  /ə/ 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.^[8] 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⟩, as well as in French; it is the second most common in Spanish, and the most common in Portuguese. ⟨a⟩ represents approximately 8.2% of letters as used in English texts;^[9] the figure is around 7.6% in French^[10] 11.5% in Spanish,^[11] and 14.6% in Portuguese.^[12]

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/.

• 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.

• When using
  base-16
  notation, A or a is the conventional numeral corresponding to the number 10.
• 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. In 1637, René Descartes "invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations by x, y, and z, and knowns by a, b, and c",^[13] and this convention is still often followed, especially in elementary algebra.
• In geometry, capital Latin letters are used to denote objects including line segments, lines, and rays^[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;
  A1 at Lloyd's for shipping, 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.^[14]
• A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe,
  brassiere.^[15]

• ⟨Æ æ⟩: a ligature of ⟨AE⟩ originally used in Latin
• ⟨A⟩ with
  ᶏ^[16]
• 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 alpha, represents an open back unrounded vowel in the IPA
  • ⟨ᶐ⟩: Latin small alpha with a retroflex hook^[16]
  • ⟨Ɐ ɐ⟩: Turned A, represents a near-open central vowel in the IPA
  • ⟨Λ ʌ⟩:
    Turned V, represents an open-mid back unrounded vowel
    in IPA
  • ⟨Ɒ ɒ⟩: Turned alpha or script A, represents an open back rounded vowel in the IPA
  • ⟨ᶛ⟩: Modifier letter small turned alpha^[16]
  • ⟨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),^[17] sometimes encoded with Unicode subscripts and superscripts
  • ⟨_a⟩: Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies^[18]
  • ⟨ꬱ⟩: Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system^[19]
  • ⟨Ꞻ ꞻ⟩: Glottal A, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic^[20]

• ⟨ª⟩: ordinal indicator
• ⟨Å⟩:
  Ångström
  sign
• ⟨∀⟩: turned capital letter A, used in
  predicate logic to specify universal quantification
  ("for all")
• ⟨@⟩: At sign
• ⟨₳⟩: Argentine austral
• ⟨Ⓐ⟩: anarchy symbol

• ⟨𐤀⟩: Phoenician aleph, from which the following symbols originally derive:^[21]
  • ⟨Α α⟩: Greek letter alpha, from which the following letters derive:^[22]
    • ⟨А а⟩:
      Cyrillic letter A^[23]
    • ⟨Ⲁ ⲁ⟩:
      Coptic letter alpha^[24]
    • ⟨𐌀⟩:
      Old Italic A, the ancestor of modern Latin A^[25][26]
      • ⟨ᚨ⟩:
        ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A^[27]
    • ⟨𐌰⟩: Gothic letter aza
• ⟨Ա ա⟩:
  ayb

The Latin letters ⟨A⟩ and ⟨a⟩ have

Variant forms of the letter have unique code points for specialist use: the alphanumeric symbols set in mathematics and science, Latin alpha in linguistics, and halfwidth and fullwidth forms for legacy CJK font compatibility. The Cyrillic and Greek homoglyphs of the Latin ⟨A⟩ have separate encodings U+0410 А CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER A and U+0391 Α GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA.

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Alpha	▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

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

Bibliography

• "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.
  PMID 19622200
  .
• Diringer, David (2000). "A". In Bayer, Patricia (ed.). Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. I. Danbury, CT: Grolier.
  ISBN 978-0-717-20133-4
  .
• Gelb, I. J.; Whiting, R. M. (1998). "A". In Ranson, K. Anne (ed.). Academic American Encyclopedia. Vol. I. Danbury, CT: Grolier.
  ISBN 978-0-7172-2068-7
  .
• Hall-Quest, Olga Wilbourne (1997). "A". In Johnston, Bernard (ed.). Collier's Encyclopedia. Vol. I. New York: P. F. Collier.
• Hoiberg, Dale H., ed. (2010). "A". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1. Chicago.
  ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
  )
• McCarter, P. Kyle (1974). "The Early Diffusion of the Alphabet". The Biblical Archaeologist. 37 (3): 54–68.
  S2CID 126182369
  .
• Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989). "A". Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. I (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-19-861213-1
  .

External links

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