А (А а; italics: ''А а'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking cou ...

. It commonly represents an

open central unrounded vowel The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back , it ...

, halfway between the pronunciation of in "cat" and "father". The Cyrillic letter А is romanized using the Latin letter A.

History

The Cyrillic letter А was derived directly from the Greek letter Alpha (). In the

Early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is a writing system that was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the late 9th century on the basis of the Greek alphabet for the Slavic people livin ...

its name was (azǔ), meaning "I". In the Cyrillic numeral system, the Cyrillic letter А has a value of 1.

Form

Throughout history, the Cyrillic letter А has had various shapes, but today is standardised on one that looks exactly like the Latin letter A, including the italic and

lower case 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 ...

forms.

Usage

In most languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet – such as Bulgarian,

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * Som ...

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

, Russian, Rusyn,

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also

* * * Old Serbian (disambiguat ...

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...

and Montenegrin – the Cyrillic letter А represents the

. In

Ingush Ingush may refer to: * Ingush language * Ingush people The Ingush (, inh, ГIалгIай, translit=Ghalghaj, pronounced ) per Oxford dictionary "a member of a people living mainly in Ingushetia in the central Caucasus." Ingushetia is a federa ...

and Chechen the Cyrillic letter А represents both the

open back unrounded vowel The open back unrounded vowel, or low back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A. The ...

and the mid-central vowel . In Tuvan the letter can be written as a double vowel.

Related letters and other similar characters

*A a : Latin letter A *Á á : Latin letter Á *Α α : Greek letter Alpha *Ă ă : Latin letter A with Breve *Â â :

Latin letter A with Circumflex Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the 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 the power of the ...

History

Form

Usage

Related letters and other similar characters

Computing codes

See also

References

External links