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A
A or a is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the modern
A
English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet.[1] 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.[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
Aa
(See below)
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.

Contents
History
Usage
Typographic variants
Writing system Latin script
Use in writing systems
English Type Alphabetic and
Logographic
Other languages
Other systems Language of Latin language
origin
Other uses
Phonetic usage [a]
Related characters
[ɑ]
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
[ɒ]
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
[æ]
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
[ə]
Computing codes [ɛ]
Other representations [oː]
[ɔ]
Notes
[e]
Footnotes
[ʕ]
References [ʌ]
External links /eɪ/
Unicode value U+0041, U+0061

History Alphabetical
position
1
Numerical
value: 1
History

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Development

Αα
𐌀

Aa

Time period ~-700 to

present
Descendants •Æ
•Ä
•Â
•Ɑ
•Λ
•Ɐ
•ª
•Å
•₳
•@
•Ⓐ
•ⓐ
•⒜
•🅰
Sisters 𐌰
А
Я
Ə
Ӑ
‫א‬
‫ا‬
‫ܐ‬

𐎀
ℵ
አ
‫ء‬
Աա
અ
अ
অ

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Variations (See below)

Other
Other letters a(x), ae, eau
commonly used
with
Associated 1
numbers

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

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.

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 Uncial A
Blackletter A Another Blackletter A
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 Modern Roman A Modern Italic A Modern script A
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.

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Typographic variants

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 Different glyphs of the
intermediate between the monumental and cursive styles. The known variants lowercase letter A.
include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later semi-uncial.[5]

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.[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
Typographic variants include a used in most current handwriting and consists of a circle and vertical
double-storey a and single- stroke. This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling
storey ɑ. 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

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;[4]

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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 Pronunciation of the name of the letter ⟨a⟩ in
their own sound or sounds, particularly ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨aw⟩, European languages, note that /a/ and /aː/ can
⟨ay⟩, ⟨ea⟩ and ⟨oa⟩. differ phonetically between [a], [ä], [æ] and [ɑ]
depending on the language.
⟨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
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.

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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.[10]

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 [11]

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[11]
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[11]
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)[12]
ₐ : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies[13]
ꬱ : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system[14]
: Glottal A, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic[15]

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
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₳ : Argentine austral

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

𐤀 : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols originally derive[16]
Α α : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters derive[17]
А а : Cyrillic letter A[18]
Ⲁ ⲁ : Coptic letter Alpha[19]
𐌀 : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin A[20][21]

ᚨ : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A[22]

𐌰 : Gothic letter aza/asks

Ա ա : Armenian letter Ayb

Computing codes
Character information

Preview A a
Unicode name
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 Braille dots-1

manual Unified

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alphabet (ASL English Braille

fingerspelling)

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. Simpson & Weiner 1989, p. 1
2. McCarter 1974, p. 54
3. Hoiberg 2010, p. 1
4. Hall-Quest 1997, p. 1
5. Diringer 2000, p. 1
6. Gelb & Whiting 1998, p. 45
7. Anon 2004
8. Anon 2006
9. Ciani & Sheldon 2010, pp. 99–100
10. Luciani, Jené (2009). The bra book : the fashion formula to finding the perfect bra. Voltz, Ralph.
Dallas, TX: Benbella Books, Inc. p. 13. ISBN 9781933771946. OCLC 317453115 (https://www.worldc
at.org/oclc/317453115).
11. Constable, Peter (19 April 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20171011014355/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf) (PDF)
from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
12. Everson, Michael; et al. (20 March 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://
web.archive.org/web/20180219081033/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phoneti
c.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 19 February 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
13. Anderson, Deborah; Everson, Michael (7 June 2004). "L2/04-191: Proposal to encode six Indo-
Europeanist phonetic characters in the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04191-n2788-laryn
geals.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171011014402/http://www.unicode.org/L2/
L2004/04191-n2788-laryngeals.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 24 March
2018.
14. 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" (https://www.unicode.org/
L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/201710110124
26/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 11
October 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
15. Suignard, Michel (9 May 2017). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an
Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17076r2-n4792r2-eg
yptological-yod.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20190330043926/https://www.unic
ode.org/L2/L2017/17076r2-n4792r2-egyptological-yod.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 30 March
2019. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
16. Jensen, Hans, Sign, Symbol, and Script, G.P. Putman's Sons, New York, 1969.

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17. "Hebrew lesson of the week: The letter Aleph" (https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/hebrew-lesso

n-of-the-week-letter-aleph/). The Times of Israel. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2018052611
3655/https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/hebrew-lesson-of-the-week-letter-aleph/) from the
original on 26 May 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
18. "Cyrillic alphabet" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alphabet). Encyclopedia Britannica.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20180526114423/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alp
habet) from the original on 26 May 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
19. Silvestre, Joseph Balthaszar; (Jacques-Joseph), M. Champollion-Figeac; Champollion-Figeac, Aimé
Louis (1850). Universal Palaeography (https://books.google.com/?id=n2QWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA123&
dq=coptic+alphabet+greek+alphabet#v=onepage&q=coptic%20alphabet&f=false). H.G. Bohn.
20. American journal of archaeology (https://books.google.com/?id=fwAoAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA534&dq=old
+italic+greek+alphabet#v=onepage&q=old%20italic%20greek%20alphabet&f=false). 1891.
21. Steele, Philippa (31 August 2017). Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing
Systems (https://books.google.com/?id=Lv4sDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA96&dq=old+italic+script+greek#v=o
nepage&q=old%20italic%20script%20greek&f=false). Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781785706479.
22. IV, Benjamin W. Fortson (7 September 2011). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction
(https://books.google.com/?id=bSxHgej4tKMC&pg=PA349&dq=Runic+developed+from+old+italic#v=
onepage&q=Runic%20developed%20from%20old%20italic&f=false). John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN 9781444359688.

References
Anon (2004). "English Letter Frequency" (http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptograph
y/subs/frequencies.html). Math Explorer's Club. Cornell University. Archived (https://web.archive.org/
web/20140422040328/http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.
html) from the original on 22 April 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
Anon (2006). "Percentages of Letter frequencies per Thousand words" (https://web.archive.org/web/
20070125220315/http://starbase.trincoll.edu/~crypto/resources/LetFreq.html). Trinity College.
Archived from the original (http://starbase.trincoll.edu/~crypto/resources/LetFreq.html) 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 (https://doi.org/10.1348%2F000709909X466479). PMID 19622200
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/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" (https://archive.org/details/newencyclopaedia2009ency).
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 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F3210965).
JSTOR 3210965 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3210965).
Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E.S.C., eds. (1989). "A" (https://archive.org/details/oxfordenglishdic01oxfo).
The Oxford English Dictionary. I: A–Bazouki (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-861213-1.

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External links
History of the Alphabet (http://members.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionaryclassic/chapters/pix/alphabet.gif)
Texts on Wikisource:
"A" in A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
"A" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_American_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_(1879)/A). The American
Cyclopædia. 1879.
"A". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
"A" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Reference_Work/A). The New
Students Reference Work (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Students_Reference_Work).
1914.
"A" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Collier%27s_New_Encyclopedia_(1921)/A). Collier's New
Encyclopedia. 1921.

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