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The letter '''A''' is the first letter in the
Latin alphabet. Its name in
English language English is ''a'' {{IPA|[eɪ]}}, plural ''aes,'' ''a's,'' or ''as''.
History
The letter A probably started as a
pictogram of an
ox head in
Egyptian hieroglyphs or the
Proto-semitic alphabet.
{| align="center" cellspacing="10"
|- align="center"
|
Image:EgyptianA-01.png Egyptian hieroglyphic ox headEgyptian hieroglyph
ox head
|
Image:Proto-semiticA-01.png Proto-semitic ox headProto-semitic
ox head
|
Image:PhoenicianA-01.png Phoenician alephPhoenician ''aleph''
|
Image:GreekA-01.png Greek alphaGreek ''alpha''
|
Image:EtruscanA-01.png Etruscan AEtruscan A
|
Image:RomanA-01.png Roman ARoman A
|}
By 1600 BC, the
Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the basis for all later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the
Hebrew alphabet Hebrew Aleph (letter) aleph. The name is also similar to the Arabic
Alif alif.
When the
Ancient Greece Ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for the
glottal stop that the letter had denoted in Phoenician and other
Semitic languages, so they used the sign for the vowel {{IPA.html">alpha (letter)
alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions, 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 what was
Italy 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.
The letter has two
minuscule (lower-case) forms. The form used in most current handwriting consists of a circle and vertical stroke. Most printed material uses a form consisting of a small loop with an arc over it. 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 below. 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.
{| align="center" cellspacing="10"
|- align="center"
|
Image:BlackletterA-01.png Blackletter ABlackletter A
|
Image:UncialA-01.png Uncial AUncial A
|
Image:Acap.png Another Capital A
|- align="center"
|
Image:ModernRomanA-01.png Modern Roman AModern Roman A
|
Image:ModernItalicA-01.png Modern Italic AModern Italic A
|
Image:ModernScriptA-01.png Modern Script AModern Script A
|}
Usage
In
English language English, the letter A by itself usually denotes the
lax open front unrounded vowel ({{IPA2.html">open back unrounded vowel ({{IPA2
ɑ}}) as in ''father'', or, in concert with a later orthographic e, the diphthong {{IPA2|eʲ}} (though the pronunciation varies with the dialect) as in ''ace'', due to effects of the
Great vowel shift.
In most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter A denotes either an
open back unrounded vowel ({{IPA2|É‘}}), or an
open central unrounded vowel ({{IPA2|a}}).
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet, variants of the letter A denote various
vowels. In
X-SAMPA, capital A denotes the
open back unrounded vowel and lowercase a denotes the
open front unrounded vowel.
A also is the English
indefinite article, extended to
an before a vowel. See
A, an.
Codes for computing
{{Letter
|NATO=Alpha
|Morse=·–
|B1=â—?
|B2=â—‹
|B3=â—‹
|B4=â—‹
|B5=â—‹
|B6=â—‹
}}
In
Unicode the
majuscule capital A is codepoint U+0041 and the
minuscule lowercase a is U+0061.
In
Hexadecimal Hex, A is the character used to represent decimal 10, or in
Binary numeral system binary, 01010
The
ASCII code for capital A is 65 and for lowercase a is 97; or in
Binary numeral system binary 01000001 and 01100001, correspondingly.
The
EBCDIC code for capital A is 193 and for lowercase a is 129.
The
numeric character references in
HTML and
XML are "
A" and "
a" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for '''A'''
* In
United States American Major League Baseball, the
Oakland Athletics are often simply referred to as the "'''A's'''."
* In
astronomy,
** A stands for a January 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g.
C/1760 A1, the Great Comet of 1760) or asteroid (e.g. {{mpl|(4099) 1988 AB|5}})
** ''a'' is often used to denote the
semi-major axis of an orbit
* In
biochemistry, A is the symbol for
alanine and
adenosine.
* Brassiere
cup size '''A'''
* In
calendars, A is often an abbreviation for the
months April and August.
* In
computing,
**
<a> is the
HTML element#links and anchors HTML element for an anchor tag.
** In the Mac OS, Command-A (for All), and in Windows, Ctrl-A, and selects all the text in the document, or all the pixels of an image.
** A sometimes represents the set of all alphabetic characters within
character string (computer science) string patterns.
** A:\ is the conventional address of the first floppy disk drive in
CP/M-based
operating systems such as
DOS.
** A is a security division ("Verified Protection") in the
TCSEC.
* In
education, a
Grade (education) grade of '''A''' typically represents the highest score that students can achieve. This is sometimes coupled with a
plus/
minus sign, as in '''A+''' or '''A-''', or a number, as in '''A1'''. It is occasionally a grade one level below '''A*''' (pronounced "A Star").
* In
electronics,
**
A battery A is a standard size of
battery (electricity) battery.
** A refers to the Anode, or filament, component of a
vacuum tube.
* In
English language English, the word ''a'' is an indefinite
article (grammar) article, see
A, an
* In
Esperanto#Grammar Esperanto, -a is the adjectival/attributive ending; A is commonly an abbreviation meaning English (language).
* In
fiction, the letter worn by Hester Prynne marking her as an adultress in the
Nathaniel Hawthorne novel ''
The Scarlet Letter'' was an ''A''.
* In
film, ''A'' is an Italian film made in 1969; see ''
A (film)''.
* In
finance, A is the U.S.
ticker symbol for
Agilent Technologies.
* In
games, the letter A is used to mark each of the
Aces in a deck of
playing cards.
* In
geology it stands for ''annum'' (Latin for "year") and is usually used with ''Mega (Ma)'' and ''Giga (Ga)'' to indicate very long periods of time; see
annum.
* In
Greek language Greek, a- is a
prefix (linguistics) prefix (''alpha privativum'') meaning "not" or "devoid of," used in many borrowed words in
English language English,
German language German and
Romance languages (e.g. amoral, asexual, arhythmic).
* In
India ''A'' is movie rating, given to those intended to be seen only by adults.
* In
List of international license plate codes international licence plate codes, A stands for
Austria.
* In
paper size international paper sizes, A is a series of sizes with an
Paper size aspect ratio of roughly 70% width to height, with A4 being an example popular size.
* In
logic,
**the letter A is used as a symbol for the universal affirmative proposition in the general form "all x is y." The letters I, E, and O are used respectively for the particular affirmative "some x is y," the universal negative "no x is y," and the particular negative "some x is not y." The use of these letters is generally derived from the vowels of the two
Latin verbs ''affirmo'' (or AIo), "I assert," and ''nego'', "I deny." The use of the symbols dates from the thirteenth century, though some authorities trace their origin to the Greek logicians.
**In
symbolic logic, the symbol ∀ (an inverted letter A) is the
universal quantifier.
* In
mathematics,
**A is often used as a
numerical digit digit meaning ''
10 (number) ten'' in
hexadecimal and other positional
numeral systems with a
radix of 11 or greater,
**
blackboard bold (𝔄 in
Unicode) sometimes represents the
algebraic numbers.
**In the
On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, each sequence has an ID consisting of the letter A and six base 10 digits.
* In
medicine, '''A''' (also, '''A+''' or '''A-''') is one of the human
blood types.
* In
music,
** A is a
Pitch class or
note, see
A (musical note).
** A, or "side A," refers to the top or first side of a
vinyl record.
** ''A'' is a
British rock band; see ''
A (band)''.
** ''A'' is an album by
Jethro Tull (band) Jethro Tull; see ''
A (album)''.
* In
nutrition, A is a
vitamin.
* In
photography, most SLR cameras use A to signify aperture priority mode, where the user sets the aperture and the camera determines the shutter speed.
* In
poetry,
A (poem) A is the major work of influential twentieth century author
Louis Zukofsky.
* In
political science political theory, a circumscribed "A" is an
anarchist symbolism anarchist symbol.
* As the first letter of a
postal code,
** In
Canada, A stands for
Newfoundland and Labrador.
* On the serial numbers of
United States dollars, A identifies the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
* In the
SI system of units,
** A is the symbol for the
ampere or amp, the
SI base unit of
electric current.
** a,
atto, is the
SI prefix meaning 10
-18
** a is the symbol for the
are, a unit of surface area equal to 100
square metres.
* As a
timezone, A is the military designation for
Coordinated Universal Time+1, also known as CET or
Central European Time.
*
Topography Topographically, A is used to describe an object shaped like the capital letter A, such as an
A-frame.
See also
{{Wikisource1911Enc|A}}
{{Commons|A}}
*
Alpha (letter) Alpha
*
A (Cyrillic) Cyrillic A
*
ª
*
À
*
Ã?
*
Â
*
Ã
*
Ä (Ae)
*
Ã… (Aa)
*
Æ
*
A-breve Ă
*
A-ogonek Ą
*
∀
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Category:Latin letters
Category:Vowels
als:A
ar:A
bs:A
ca:A
cs:A
da:A
de:A
et:A
el:A
es:A
eo:A
fr:A
gl:A
ko:A
hr:A
io:A
id:A
it:A
he:A
kw:A
la:A
hu:A
nl:A
ja:A
no:A
nn:A
pl:A
pt:A
ro:A
ru:Ð? (буква)
sq:A
scn:A
simple:A
sl:A
sr:A (латиничко)
fi:A
sv:A
tl:A
vi:A
tr:A
yo:A
zh:A
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