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A
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the letter of the alphabet. For the English indefinite
article, see English articles � Indefinite article. For other uses, see A
(disambiguation).
For technical reasons, "A#" redirects here. For A-sharp, see A-sharp
(disambiguation).
A
A a
(See below)
Writing cursive forms of A
Usage
Writing system Latin script
Type Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin Latin language
Phonetic usage [a]
[?]
[?]
[�]
[?]
[?]
[o?]
[?]
[e]
[?]
[?]
/e?/
Unicode value U+0041, U+0061
Alphabetical position 1
Numerical value: 1
History
Development
F1
Proto-Sinaitic 'alp
Early Crete version of the letter "A"
Proto-Caanite Aleph
Phoenician Aleph
? a
??Greek Classical uncial
Early Latin ALatin 300 AD uncial, version 1
A a
Time period ~-700 to present
Descendants � �
� �
� �
� ?
� ?
� ?
� �
� �
� ?
� @
� ?
� ?
� ?
� ??
Sisters ??
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
??
?
?
?
? ?
?
?
?
Variations (See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used with a(x), ae, eau
Associated numbers 1
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you
may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For
an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
A
ISO basic
Latin 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 (named /e?/, plural As, A's, as, a's or aes[nb 1]) is the first letter and the
first vowel of the ISO basic Latin alphabet.[1] It is similar to the Ancient Greek
letter alpha, from which it derives.[2] The upper-case version consists of the two
slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lower-
case version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ?.
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.

Contents
1 History
1.1 Typographic variants
2 Use in writing systems
2.1 English
2.2 Other languages
2.3 Other systems
3 Other uses
4 Related characters
4.1 Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
4.2 Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
4.3 Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
5 Computing codes
6 Other representations
7 Notes
8 Footnotes
9 References
10 External links
History
Egyptian Cretan Phoenician
aleph Semitic
Greek
Alpha Etruscan
A Roman/Cyrillic
A Boeotian
800�700 BC Greek
Uncial Latin 300 AD
Uncial
Egyptian hieroglyphic ox head Early Crete version of the letter "A" Phoenician
aleph Semitic letter "A", version 1 Greek alpha, version 1 Etruscan A, version 1
Roman A Boeotian Greek Classical uncial, version 1 Latin 300 AD
uncial, version 1
F1
Crete "A" Phoenician version of the "A" Semitic "A", version 2 Greek alpha,
version 2 Etruscan A, version 2 Latin 4th century BC Boeotioan 800 BC Greek
Classical uncial, version 2 Latin 300 AD uncial, version 2
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
Hebrew or Arabic aleph.

Blackletter A
Blackletter A Uncial A
Uncial A Another Capital A
Another Blackletter A
Modern Roman A
Modern Roman A Modern Italic A
Modern Italic A Modern Script 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.[5]

Typographic variants include a double-storey a and single-storey ?.

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 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.[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 ("?"), 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 /a?/ can differ phonetically between [a], [�], [�] and [?] depending on the
language.
English
Further information: Pronunciation of English ?a?
In modern English orthography, the letter ?a? represents at least seven different
vowel sounds:

the near-open front unrounded vowel /�/ as in pad;

the open back unrounded vowel /??/ as in father, which is closer to its original
Latin and Greek sound;[4]
the diphthong /e?/ 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 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?),[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/, /�/, or /?/. An exception is Saanich, in which ?a? (and the glyph �)
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, ?�? is used for the open central unrounded vowel, and ??? 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
Main article: A (disambiguation)
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.

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]

Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe,[4] or a

small cup size in a brassiere.[citation needed]

Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
� � : Latin AE ligature
A with diacritics: � � ? ? ? ? ? A a ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? �
� ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? A a ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? � � A a � � ? ? � � A a A` a` � � A a
A� a� A~ a~ ?[10]
Phonetic alphabet symbols related to A (the International Phonetic Alphabet only
uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems):
? ? : Latin letter alpha / script A, which represents an open back unrounded vowel
in the IPA
? : Latin small letter alpha with retroflex hook[10]
? ? : Turned A, which represents a near-open central vowel in the IPA
? ? : turned V (also called a wedge, a caret, or a hat), which represents an open-
mid back unrounded vowel in the IPA
? ? : Turned alpha / script A, which represents an open back rounded vowel in the
IPA
? : Modifier letter small turned alpha[10]
? : Small capital A, an obsolete or non-standard symbol in the International
Phonetic Alphabet used to represent various sounds (mainly open vowels)
? ? ? : Modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA).[11]
? : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies[12]
? : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription
system[13]
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
� : an ordinal indicator
� : �ngstr�m 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

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (December 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template
message)
?? : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols originally derive[14]
? a : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters derive
? ? : Cyrillic letter A
? ? : Coptic letter Alpha
?? : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin A
? : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A
?? : Gothic letter aza/asks
Computing codes
Character 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 ��
ICS Alpha.svg Semaphore Alpha.svg Sign language A.svg ?
Signal flag Flag semaphore American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)
Braille
dots-1
Notes
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
Simpson & Weiner 1989, p. 1
McCarter 1974, p. 54
Hoiberg 2010, p. 1
Hall-Quest 1997, p. 1
Diringer 2000, p. 1
Gelb & Whiting 1998, p. 45
Anon 2004
Anon 2006
Ciani & Sheldon 2010, pp. 99�100
Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic
characters to the UCS" (PDF).
Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
characters for the UCS" (PDF).
Anderson, Deborah; Everson, Michael (2004-06-07). "L2/04-191: Proposal to encode
six Indo-Europeanist phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF).
Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-
06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in
the UCS" (PDF).
Jensen, Hans, Sign, Symbol, and Script, G.P. Putman's Sons, New York, 1969.
References
Anon (2004). "English Letter Frequency". Math Explorer's Club. Cornell University.
Archived from the original on 28 May 2014. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
Anon (2006). "Percentages of Letter frequencies per Thousand words". Trinity
College. 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.
Diringer, David (2000). "A". In Bayer, Patricia. Encyclopedia Americana. I: A-Anjou
(First ed.). Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated. ISBN 0-7172-0133-3.
Gelb, I. J.; Whiting, R. M. (1998). "A". In Ranson, K. Anne. Academic American
Encyclopedia. I: A�Ang (First ed.). Danbury, CT: Grolier Incorporated. ISBN 0-7172-
2068-0.
Hall-Quest, Olga Wilbourne (1997). "A". In Johnston, Bernard. Collier's
Encyclopedia. I: A to Ameland (First ed.). New York, NY: P.F. Collier.
Hoiberg, Dale H., ed. (2010). "A". Encyclop�dia Britannica. 1: A-ak�Bayes. Chicago,
IL: Encyclop�dia 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. JSTOR 3210965.
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 0-19-861213-3.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to A.
Look up A or a in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
History of the Alphabet
Texts on Wikisource:
"A" in A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
"A". The American Cyclop�dia. 1879.
"A". Encyclop�dia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
"A". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914.
"A". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
[hide] v t e
Latin script
History Spread Romanization Roman numerals
Alphabets (list)
Classical Latin alphabet ISO basic Latin alphabet phonetic alphabets International
Phonetic Alphabet X-SAMPA Spelling alphabet
Letters (list)
Letters of the ISO basic Latin 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
Letter A with diacritics
�� �� Aa ?? ?? ?? ?? �� ?? ?? ?? ?? Aa ��
?? �� Aa �� ?? ?? Aa A�a� A~a~ Aa A`a` ??
?? A?a? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ? ?

Multigraphs
Digraphs
ch cz d� dz gh ij ll ly nh ny sh sz th
Trigraphs
dzs eau
Tetragraphs
ough
Pentagraphs
tzsch
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QWERTY QWERTZ AZERTY Dvorak Colemak
Standards
ISO/IEC 646 Unicode Western Latin character sets
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precomposed Latin characters in Unicode letters used in mathematics
Diacritics Palaeography
Categories: GraphemesISO basic Latin letters
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