Latin alpha ( majuscule: Ɑ,

minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

: ɑ) or script a is a letter of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...

based on one lowercase form of a, or on the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

lowercase alpha (α).

Usage

Although is normally just an

allograph Allography, from the Greek for "other writing", has several meanings which all relate to how words and sounds are written down. Authorship An allograph may be the opposite of an autograph – i.e. a person's words or name ( signature) written b ...

of , there are instances in which the two letters must be carefully distinguished: * In the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

, represents an open back unrounded vowel, while represents an

open front unrounded vowel The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language b ...

. It has the shape of a script-a. * Also in the

General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthography, orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Languages of Cameroon, Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary excep ...

, usually represents an open back unrounded vowel, while represents an

. 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 the GACL; for example, in Muyang, the literacy represents an

open-mid central unrounded vowel The open-mid central unrounded vowel, or low-mid central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphab ...

but it is not ; the Latin alpha is not used. In Cameroon languages, must look like the classical lowercase Greek alpha to better differentiate it from the letter a in script form. is used in the

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nes ...

. is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system. is used in

Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American ...

Typography

Latin-a-and-Latin-alpha-and-Greek-alpha-in-different-fonts

Encoding and forms

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

, "Latin alpha" () and "Latin script a" ( Latin uppercase script a

) are considered to be the same character, which has an uppercase and a lowercase form and is referred to as "Latin letter alpha".

References

A, Latin alpha Phonetic transcription symbols Vowel letters {{phonetics-stub

Usage

Typography

Encoding and forms

See also

References