Road register Ireland demonstrating the Irish "Latin alpha" type of ⟨a⟩ in reduced and higher situation sorts 15th-century Italy observed the formation of The 2 main variants which have been acknowledged today. These variants, the Italic and Roman kinds, were being derived through the Caroline Script Variation. The Italic form ⟨ɑ⟩, also known as script a, is often used in handwriting; it is made of a circle which has a vertical stroke on its right. Within the hands of medieval Irish and English writers, this kind little by little designed from the 5th-century type resembling the Greek letter tau ⟨τ⟩.
While in the Intercontinental Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨a⟩ is utilized for the open up entrance unrounded vowel, ⟨ä⟩ is used for the open central unrounded vowel, and ⟨ɑ⟩ is employed for the open back unrounded vowel.
The sound for which the letter constantly stood in Greek and Latin was the open up minimal back vowel, in some cases recognized in present day English as continental a
Phonetic alphabet symbols relevant to A—the International Phonetic Alphabet only works by using lowercase, but uppercase types are Employed in Several other creating units:
. This can be the sound which the letter now Generally signifies when the vowel is long. Seem three represents a stage in the event of a
"Alpha and Omega" (the final letter of the Greek alphabet) signifies from starting to the tip. In musical notation, the letter A will be the symbol of a Notice in the scale, beneath B and previously mentioned G.
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In algebra, the letter "A" along with other letters in the beginning in the alphabet is used to signify identified quantities.
Citizens, purportedly answering a matter from Spaniards while in the 16th century of just what the name in their location was, expressing "Monte sa Lupa", apparently mistaking the issue for what card video game they have been enjoying; and
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. You will find not surprisingly countless slight variations in the method of pronouncing this seem. In English the seem has gone through far-achieving changes during and since the center English time period. They're as a result of fronting, that's to convey, pronouncing the audio a lot more towards the entrance from the mouth, or to rounding, a little bit rounding the lips, which has the effect of leading to the seem to get pronounced greater during the mouth.
[ C/U ] audio plural A’s or As in Western new music, the sixth Notice in the scale (= series of notes) that commences around the Take note C, or possibly a list of notes according to this Be aware
It is analogous in condition to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives.[three] The uppercase Model is made up of The 2 slanting check here sides of a triangle, crossed in the center by a horizontal bar.
⟨a⟩ may be the 3rd-most-usually applied letter in English immediately after ⟨e⟩ and ⟨t⟩, together with in French; it can be the second most common in Spanish, and the commonest in Portuguese.
⟨ᴀ⟩: Smaller capital A, an obsolete or non-conventional symbol during the Worldwide Phonetic Alphabet accustomed to represent different Appears (mainly open vowels)
or A /ˈeɪ/ plural a's or as or simply a's or As Britannica Dictionary definition website of the 1 : the first letter in the English alphabet [count] a word that commences with the a