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funny letter, it curves |
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{{Otherusesof|A}} |
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{{wiktionarypar2|A|a}} |
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{{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=A|lc=a}} |
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<!--When inserting apostrophes in this section, be careful--> |
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The letter '''A''' is the first letter in the [[Latin alphabet]]. Its name in [[English language|English]] is '''a'''<ref>"a", ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged,'' (1993)</ref> ({{pronEng|eɪ}}), plural ''A''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s, ''A''s, ''a''s, or ''a's''.<ref>''Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors'' p. 61 (1998); ''Chicago Manual of Style,'' 15th ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2003) p. 281</ref> |
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== History == |
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The letter A can be traced to a [[pictogram]] of an [[ox]] head in [[Egyptian hieroglyph]] or the [[Proto-semitic alphabet]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |
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| title = A |
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| encyclopedia = The World Book Encyclopedia |
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| volume = 1 |
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| pages = 1 |
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| publisher = Field Enterprises, Inc |
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| date = 1956 }} |
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</ref> |
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{| class="wikitable" |
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|- style="background-color:#EEEEEE; text-align:center;" |
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! Egyptian hieroglyph<br> ox's head |
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! Proto-Semitic<br> ox's head |
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! Phoenician <br>''aleph'' |
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! Greek <br>Alpha |
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! Etruscan <br>A |
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! Roman <br>A |
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|- style="background-color:white; text-align:center;" |
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|[[Image:EgyptianA-01.svg|Egyptian hieroglyphic ox head]] |
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|[[Image:Proto-semiticA-01.svg|Proto-semitic ox head]] |
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|[[Image:PhoenicianA-01.svg|Phoenician aleph]] |
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|[[Image:Alpha uc lc.svg|65px|Greek alpha]] |
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|[[Image:EtruscanA.svg|Etruscan A]] |
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|[[Image:RomanA-01.svg|Roman A]] |
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|} |
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By about 1600 B.C. the [[Phoenician alphabet]]'s letter had a linear form that served as the basis for some later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]] [[aleph]]. |
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When the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greeks]] adopted the alphabet, they had no use for the [[glottal stop]] that the letter had denoted in [[Phoenician languages|Phoenician]] and other [[Semitic languages]], so they used the sign for the vowel {{IPA|/a/}}, and changed its name to [[alpha (letter)|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. |
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The [[Etruscans]] brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the [[Italian Peninsula]] and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the [[Old Italic alphabet|Etruscan alphabet]] to write [[Latin]], and the resulting letter was preserved in the modern [[Latin alphabet]] used to write many languages, including [[English language|English]]. |
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{| cellspacing="10" cellpadding="0" style="background-color: white; float: right;" |
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|- align="center" |
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|[[Image:BlackletterA-01.png|Blackletter A]]<br />[[Blackletter]] A |
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|[[Image:UncialA-01.svg|Uncial A]]<br />[[Uncial]] A |
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|[[Image:Acap.svg|Another Capital A]]<br />Another Capital A |
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|- align="center" |
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|[[Image:ModernRomanA-01.png|Modern Roman A]]<br />Modern Roman A |
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|[[Image:ModernItalicA-01.png|Modern Italic A]]<br />Modern Italic A |
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|[[Image:ModernScriptA-01.png|Modern Script A]]<br />Modern Script A |
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|} |
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The letter has two [[Lower case|minuscule]] (lower-case) forms. The form used in most current [[handwriting]], and in [[italic type]], consists of a circle and vertical stroke ({{Unicode|ɑ}}), called [[Latin alpha]] or "script a". Most printed material uses a form consisting of a small loop with an arc over it ({{IPA|a}}). 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. |
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== Usage == |
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[[Image:LowercaseA.svg|right|thumb|200|Typographic variants include a double-story and single-story '''a'''.]] |
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In [[English language|English]], the letter "A" by itself usually denotes the [[near-open front unrounded vowel]] ({{IPA|/æ/}}) as in ''pad'', the [[open back unrounded vowel]] ({{IPA|/ɑː/}}) as in ''father'', or, in concert with a later orthographic vowel, the diphthong {{IPA|/eɪ/}} (though the pronunciation varies with the dialect) as in ''ace'' and ''major'', due to effects of the [[great vowel shift]]. |
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In most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter A denotes either an [[open back unrounded vowel]] ({{IPA|/ɑ/}}), or an [[open central unrounded vowel]] ({{IPA|/a/}}). In the [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]], variants of the letter A denote various [[vowel]]s. In [[X-SAMPA]], capital A denotes the [[open back unrounded vowel]] and lowercase a denotes the [[open front unrounded vowel]]. |
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''A'' is the third-most common letter in English, and the second-most common in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[French language|French]]. On average, about 8.2% of letters in English tend to be ''A''s, while the number is 6.2% in Spanish and 4% in French.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://starbase.trincoll.edu/~crypto/resources/LetFreq.html|title=Percentages of Letter frequencies per Thousand words|accessdate=2006-05-01}}</ref> |
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''A'' also is the English [[indefinite article]], extended to ''an'' before a word beginning with a vowel. See [[a and an]]. |
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''A-'' also is a [[Prefix (linguistics)|prefix]] that serves to negate the [[morpheme]] to which it is attached, such as ''a''moral, ''a''political, etc. This derives from Greek. |
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== Codes for computing == |
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{{Letter |
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|NATO=Alpha |
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|Morse=·– |
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|Character=A1 |
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|Braille=⠁ |
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}} |
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In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] A is codepoint U+0041 and the [[minuscule|lowercase]] a is U+0061. |
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In [[Positional notation|positional numeral systems]] with base higher than 10, A is the character used to represent decimal 10, or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]], 1010 |
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The [[ASCII]] code for capital A is 65 and for lowercase a is 97; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01000001 and 01100001, respectively. |
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The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital A is 193 and for lowercase a is 129. |
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The [[morse code]] for A is dit dah or a dot and a dash. |
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The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&#65;</tt>" and "<tt>&#97;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively. |
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== See also == |
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{{Wikisource1911Enc|A}} |
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{{Commons|A}} |
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*[[Alpha (letter)|Alpha]] |
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*[[A (Cyrillic)|Cyrillic A]] |
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*<big>[[ª]]</big> |
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*[[Ã]] |
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*[[Ä]] |
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*[[Å]] (Aa) |
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*[[Æ]] |
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*[[A-breve|Ă]] |
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*[[Turned a|∀]] |
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==External references== |
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{{reflist}} |
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{{Latin alphabet}} |
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[[Category:Latin letters]] |
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[[Category:Vowel letters]] |
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[[Category:Requests for audio pronunciation (English)]] |
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[[af:A]] |
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[[als:A]] |
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[[ar:A]] |
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[[an:A]] |
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[[arc:A]] |
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[[ast:A]] |
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[[az:A]] |
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[[zh-min-nan:A]] |
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[[bar:A]] |
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[[bs:A]] |
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[[br:A (lizherenn)]] |
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[[bg:A]] |
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[[ca:A]] |
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[[cs:A]] |
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[[co:A]] |
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[[cy:A]] |
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[[da:A]] |
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[[de:A]] |
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[[dv:އޭ]] |
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[[et:A]] |
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[[el:A]] |
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[[eml:A]] |
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[[es:A]] |
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[[eo:A]] |
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[[eu:A]] |
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[[fa:A]] |
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[[fr:A (lettre)]] |
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[[fur:A]] |
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[[gd:A]] |
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[[gl:A]] |
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[[ko:A]] |
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[[hr:A]] |
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[[io:A]] |
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[[ilo:A]] |
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[[ia:A]] |
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[[is:A]] |
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[[it:A]] |
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[[he:A]] |
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[[ka:A]] |
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[[kw:A]] |
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[[sw:A]] |
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[[ht:A]] |
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[[ku:A (herf)]] |
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[[la:A]] |
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[[lv:A]] |
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[[lb:A (Buschtaf)]] |
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[[lt:A]] |
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[[hu:A]] |
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[[ms:A]] |
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[[nah:A]] |
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[[nl:A (letter)]] |
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[[ja:A]] |
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[[no:A]] |
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[[nn:A]] |
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[[nrm:A]] |
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[[uz:A (xarf)]] |
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[[pl:A]] |
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[[pt:A]] |
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[[crh:A]] |
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[[ro:A]] |
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[[qu:A]] |
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[[ru:A (латиница)]] |
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[[se:A]] |
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[[scn:A]] |
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[[simple:A]] |
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[[szl:A]] |
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[[sl:A]] |
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[[sr:A (слово латинице)]] |
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[[fi:A]] |
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[[sv:A]] |
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[[tl:A]] |
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[[th:A]] |
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[[vi:A]] |
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[[tr:A]] |
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[[uk:A (латиниця)]] |
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[[vo:A]] |
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[[yo:A]] |
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[[zh-yue:A]] |
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[[diq:A]] |
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[[bat-smg:A]] |
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[[zh:A]] |
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[[sk:A]] |
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Revision as of 13:51, 28 May 2008
funny letter, it curves