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A is the first letter of the latin alphabet, and is encoded in unicode as Latin Capital Letter A, U+0041 (A) and Latin Small Letter A, U+0061 (a).

Appearance[]

The upper case letter is identical to the related Greek Capital Letter Alpha, U+0391 (Α) and Cyrillic Capital Letter A, U+0410 (А), as well as Cherokee Letter Go, U+13AA (Ꭺ). In some stylized versions it may look like Greek Capital Letter Lamda, U+039B (Λ) and Latin Capital Letter Turned V, U+0245 (Ʌ).

The lower case letter has two main variants: double-storey, and single-storey. This is also the case with Cyrillic Small Letter A, U+0430 (а). The double-storey a is commonly seen in roman and grotesk typefaces. Italic versions of serif and humanist sans serif typefaces normally have a single-storey a, making it identical to Latin Small Letter Alpha, U+0251 (ɑ) and - depending on the font - identical or similar to Greek Small Letter Alpha, U+03B1 (α).

Usage[]

The letter A is used by virtually all languages that use the latin alphabet.

The double-storey lower case a is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to denote an open front unrounded vowel. In this case, it is very important to distinguish it from the single-storey Latin Small Letter Alpha, U+0251 (ɑ), which is also used in the IPA, but for a different vowel sound.

Diacritics, ligatures and derivations[]

The latin letter A can take a lot of diacritics and combine with many letters to make ligatures. Some of the precomposed unicode characters follow here.

Above the character

Diacritic Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
Dot (˙) Ȧ U+0226 ȧ U+0227 Phonetics?
Diaeresis (¨) Ä U+00C4 ä U+00E4 e.g. German
Acute (´) Á U+00C1 á U+00E1 e.g. Icelandic
Grave (`) À U+00C0 à U+00E0 e.g. Italian
Double grave (˵) Ȁ U+0200 ȁ U+0201 Serbo-croatian linguistics
Circumflex (ˆ) Â U+00C2 â U+00E2 e.g. French
Caron (ˇ) Ǎ U+01CD ǎ U+01CE e.g. Pinyin
Tilde (~) Ã U+00C3 ã U+00E3 e.g. Portugese
Macron (¯) Ā U+0100 ā U+0101 e.g. Latvian
Breve (˘) Ă U+0102 ă U+0103 e.g. Romanian
Inverted breve Ȃ U+0202 ȃ U+0203 Serbo-croatian linguistics
Ring (˚) Å U+00C5 å U+00E5 e.g. Norwegian
Hook U+1EA2 U+1EA3 Vietnamese

Below the character:

Diacritic Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
Dot U+1EA0 U+1EA1 Vietnamese
Ring (˳) U+1E00 U+1E01 Phonetics?

Through the letter or as part of the letter:

Diacritic Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
Ogonek (˛) Ą U+0104 ą U+0105 e.g. Polish
Slash (/) Ⱥ U+023A U+2C65 Saanich
Retroflex hook U+1D8F Phonetics?

Ligatures:

Letter Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
AA ligature U+A732 U+A733 Midiaeval manuscripts?
AE ligature Æ U+00C6 æ U+00E6 e.g. Icelandic
AO ligature U+A734 U+A735 Midiaeval manuscripts?
AU ligature U+A736 U+A737 Midiaeval manuscripts?
AV ligature U+A738 U+A739 Midiaeval manuscripts?
AY ligature U+A73C U+A73D Midiaeval manuscripts?

Combinations:

Diacritics Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
Dot and macron Ǡ U+01E0 ǡ U+01E1 ?
Diaeresis and macron Ǟ U+01DE ǟ U+01DF ?
Circumflex and acute U+1EA4 U+1EA5 Vietnamese
Circumflex and grave U+1EA6 U+1EA7 Vietnamese
Circumflex and tilde U+1EAA U+1EAB Vietnamese
Circumflex and hook U+1EA8 U+1EA9 Vietnamese
Circumflex and dot below U+1EAC U+1EAD Vietnamese
Breve and acute U+1EAE U+1EAF Vietnamese
Breve and grave U+1EB0 U+1EB1 Vietnamese
Breve and tilde U+1EB4 U+1EB5 Vietnamese
Breve and hook U+1EB2 U+1EB3 Vietnamese
Breve and dot below U+1EB6 U+1EB7 Vietnamese
Ring and acute Ǻ U+01FA ǻ U+01FB e.g. Danish (but very rarely used)
Æ with acute Ǽ U+01FC ǽ U+01FD e.g. Old Norse transcription
Æ with macron Ǣ U+01E2 ǣ U+01E3 ?

Derived letters:

Variation Capital Unicode point Lower case Unicode point Usage
Small capital U+1D00 Phonetics?
Small capital Æ U+1D01 Phonetics?
Small capital, no stroke (aka. Turned V) Ʌ U+0245 ʌ U+028C e.g. IPA
Turned U+2C6F ɐ U+0250 e.g. IPA
Turned Æ U+1D02 Phonetics?
Alpha U+2C6D ɑ U+0251 e.g. IPA
Alpha with retroflex hook U+1D90 Phonetics?
Turned alpha U+2C70 ɒ U+0252 e.g. IPA
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