An alpha privative or, rarely, privative a (from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

', from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

) is the

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...

''a-'' or ''an-'' (before vowels) that is used in

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

such as

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

and Greek and in words borrowed therefrom to express negation or absence, for example the English words of greek origin '' atypical'', '' anesthetic'', and ''

analgesic An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic (American English), analgaesic (British English), pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain (that is, analgesia or pain management). It ...

''. It is derived from a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

syllabic nasal *', the zero ablaut grade of the negation *', i.e. /n/ used as a vowel. For this reason, it usually appears as ' before vowels (e.g. '' an-alphabetism'', '' an-esthesia'', '' an-archy''). It shares the same root with the Greek prefix ' or ', in Greek or , that is also privative (e.g. '). It is not to be confused with, among other things, an alpha copulative (e.g. ') or the prepositional

component Circuit Component may refer to: •Are devices that perform functions when they are connected in a circuit. In engineering, science, and technology Generic systems * System components, an entity with discrete structure, such as an assem ...

' (i.e. the preposition ' with ecthlipsis or

elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

of its final vowel before a following vowel; e.g. ').

Cognates

Sanskrit

The same prefix appears in

, also as अ- before consonants; and अन्- before vowels.

Latin

, the

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...

prefix is '. The

preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

al prefix ' is unrelated.

Germanic languages

In English and other

West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...

, the cognate is ''un-'' (or ''on-''). In

North Germanic languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...

, the -''n''- has disappeared and

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

has ' (e.g. ), Danish and Norwegian have ', whereas Swedish uses ' (pronounced , and Icelandic and Faroese use the related '.

Homonym

The prefix ' (also - ' from psilosis), copulative a, is nearly

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definitio ...

ous with privative ', but originates from Proto-Indo-European *.

References