A Double-ended Birney Streetcar, On Coxwell, In 1940
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel 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 ), 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. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ...
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Latin Alpha
Latin alpha ( majuscule: Ɑ, minuscule: ɑ) or script a is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on one lowercase form of a, or on the Greek lowercase alpha (α). Usage Although is normally just an allograph of , there are instances in which the two letters must be carefully distinguished: * In the International Phonetic Alphabet, represents an open back unrounded vowel, while represents an open front unrounded vowel. It has the shape of a script-a. * Also in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, usually represents an open back unrounded vowel, while represents an open front unrounded vowel. The former is used in the orthographies of several languages of Cameroon, including: ** Fe'fe' ** Mbembe ** Mbo (?): but not Akoose, though it does have phonemes /aa/ and /ɑɑ/; nor Bakaka. ** in some languages, the script-a form (also called literacy form) of the letter , with the lowercase much like the IPA , is used and should not be confused with the Latin alpha of th ...
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