A
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced /ˈeɪ/), plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives. 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.
| A | |
|---|---|
| A a | |
| ɑ | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabetic |
| Language of origin | Latin language |
| Phonetic usage | |
| Unicode codepoint | U+0041, U+0061 |
| Alphabetical position | 1 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | ~-700 to present |
| Descendants | |
| Sisters | |
| Variations | ɑ |
| Other | |
| Other letters commonly used with | a(x), ae, eau, au |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO basic Latin alphabet |
|---|
| AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz |
In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", are indefinite articles.