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Revision as of 18:49, 27 February 2009 view sourceGB fan (talk | contribs)Oversighters, Administrators103,345 editsm Reverted edits by 75.146.220.209 (talk) to last version by 91.47.44.17← Previous edit Revision as of 16:25, 28 February 2009 view source 67.149.196.209 (talk) ←Replaced content with 'the first letter of the english alphabet'Next edit →
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the first letter of the english alphabet
{{dablink|For ], A# redirects here. For other uses, see ].}}
{{pp-move-indef}}
{{Two other uses|the letter|the indefinite article|A and an}}

{{wiktionarypar2|A|a}}
{{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=A|lc=a}}
<!--When inserting apostrophes in this section, be careful-->
The letter '''A''' is the first letter in the ]. Its name in ] is '''a''' ({{pronEng|eɪ}}); the plural is ''aes'' or, more commonly, '''a's'''.<ref>"A" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989). Aes is the plural of the name. The plural of the letter is ''A''s, A's, ''a''s, a's.</ref>

== History ==
The letter A can be traced to a ] of an ] head in ]s or the ].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=A|encyclopedia=The World Book Encyclopedia|volume=1|page=1|publisher=Field Enterprises, Inc|date=1956}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|- style="background-color:#EEEEEE; text-align:center;"
! Egyptian hieroglyph<br> ox's head
! Proto-Semitic<br> ox's head
! Phoenician <br>''aleph''
! Greek <br>Alpha
! Etruscan <br>A
! Roman <br>A
|- style="background-color:white; text-align:center;"
|]
|]
|]
|]
|]
|]
|}

Circa 1600 B.C. the ]'s letter had a linear form that served as the basis for some later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the ] ].

When the ] adopted the alphabet, they had no use for the ] that the letter had denoted in ] and other ], so they used the sign for the vowel {{IPA|/a/}}, and kept its name with a minor change (]). In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the ], dating to the 8th century BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the ] 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 ] brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the ] and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the ] to write ], and the resulting letter was preserved in the modern ] used to write many languages, including ].

{| cellspacing="10" cellpadding="0" style="background-color: white; float: right;"
|- align="center"
|]<br />] A
|]<br />] A
|]<br />Another Blackletter A&nbsp;
|- align="center"
|]<br />Modern Roman A
|]<br />Modern Italic A
|]<br />Modern Script A
|}
The letter has two ] (lower-case) forms. The form used in most current ], and in ], consists of a circle and vertical stroke ({{Unicode|ɑ}}), called ] 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 ] 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.

== Usage ==
]
In ], the letter "A" by itself usually denotes the ] ({{IPA|/æ/}}) as in ''pad'', the ] ({{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 ].

In most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter A denotes either an ] ({{IPA|/ɑ/}}), or an ] ({{IPA|/a/}}). In the ], variants of the letter A denote various ]s. In ], capital A denotes the ] and lowercase a denotes the ].

''A'' is the third-most-common letter in English, and the second-most-common in ] and ]. 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>

== Codes for computing ==
{{Letter
|NATO=Alpha
|Morse=·–
|Character=A1
|Braille=⠁
}}
In ] the ] A is codepoint U+0041 and the ] a is U+0061.

The ] code for capital A is 65 and for lower case a is 97; or in ] 01000001 and 01100001, respectively.

The ] code for capital A is 193 and for lowercase a is 129.

The ]s in ] and ] are "<tt>&amp;#65;</tt>" and "<tt>&amp;#97;</tt>" for upper and lower case, respectively.

== See also ==
{{col-begin}}
{{col-3}}
* <big>]</big>
* ]
* ]
* ]
{{col-3}}
{{Commons|A}}
{{col-3}}
{{Wikisource1911Enc|A}}
{{col-end}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Latin alphabet}}

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Revision as of 16:25, 28 February 2009

the first letter of the english alphabet