Latin alpha on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Latin alpha ( majuscule: Ɑ, minuscule: ɑ) or script a is a letter of the
) are considered to be the same character, which has an uppercase and a lowercase form and is referred to as "Latin letter alpha".
Latin alpha ( majuscule: Ɑ, minuscule: 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 the ...
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 theInternational 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. It has the shape of a script-a.
* Also in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages The General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages is an orthographic system created in the late 1970s for all Cameroonian languages. Consonant and vowel letters are not to contain diacritics, though is a temporary exception. The alphabet is not used suf ...
, 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 the GACL; for example, in Muyang, the literacy represents an open-mid central unrounded vowel 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.
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
Encoding and forms
InUnicode
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, ...
, "Latin alpha" () and "Latin 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".
See also
* Latin turned alpha * G, which also has two distinct minuscule formsReferences
A, Latin alpha Phonetic transcription symbols Vowel letters {{phonetics-stub