A (Cyrillic)
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А (А а; italics: А а or А а; italics: А а) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents an open central unrounded vowel Template:IPA, halfway between the pronunciation of Template:Angle bracket 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 (Template:Lang). In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was Template:Script (azǔ), meaning the personal pronoun "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 standardized on one that looks exactly like the Latin letter A, including the italic and lower case forms.
Usage
In most languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet – such as Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin – the Cyrillic letter А represents the open central unrounded vowel Template:IPA. In Ingush and Chechen the Cyrillic letter А represents both the open back unrounded vowel Template:IPA when stressed and the mid-central vowel Template:IPA when unstressed. In Turkic languages that use the Cyrillic script it represents the open back unrounded vowel Template:IPA, with the exception of Volga Tatar, in which it represents the open back rounded vowel Template:IPA, and Uzbek, in which it represents the near-open front unrounded vowel Template:IPA. In languages that contrast vowel length the letter can be written as a double vowel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Anchor
Related letters and other similar characters
- A a : Latin letter A
- Á á : Latin letter A with acute
- Α α : Greek letter Alpha
- Ă ă : Latin letter A with breve
- Â â : Latin letter A with Circumflex
- Ā ā : Latin letter A with Macron
- Æ æ : Latin letter Ash
- À à : Latin letter A with grave
Computing codes
Template:Listen Template:Charmap