In turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended. The earliest known ancestor of A is aleph—the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet—where it represented a glottal stop ʔ, as Phoenician only used consonantal letters. In English (the name of the letter is the long A sound), pronounced /ˈeɪ/. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar.
A total of 22,515 words and phrases begin with the letter A — ranging from aa to Azzazame. The Cyrillic letter А has taken on different shapes throughout history (but currently), it is standardized to match the appearance of the Latin letter A, including both italic and lowercase versions. In Spanish, the character á indicates syllable stress, which aids in differentiating pronunciation and meaning within words.
Pronunciation
Quillbot’s AI Chat can show you lists of words that end in certain letters (e.g., letter A), and it’s completely free to use. The English words that end in J — Q, and V are mostly loanwords that come from another language. The letters J, Q, and V are almost never at the end of a word in English. English words that end in A can also be useful when you want to create visual symmetry or repetition with the letterform. Its long history (from pictorial symbol to foundational vowel), explains why its form feels both stable and versatile in modern design. Its design and pronunciation have evolved over thousands of years, from ancient alphabets to modern typography.
Pronunciation with an Accent
The forms of allographs include a double-storey ⟨a⟩ and a single-storey ⟨ɑ⟩. In the later iterations of the Greek alphabet — the form generally mirrors the modern capital letter, although many regional variations can be identified by a shortened leg or the Australian sports news angle of the cross line. Inscriptions from the 8th century BC (which are among the earliest Greek records post-Greek Dark Ages), show the letter lying on its side. Although they do not directly retain personal information — they are designed to uniquely identify your internet device and browser.
Form
When you’re designing something with letters and want to experiment with different typefaces — try Quillbot’s free AI image generator. Sans-serif fonts are common in reading materials for early learners, web-based reading materials, and signage. A sans serif font is a typeface that does not have serifs (decorative lines called “feet” at the end of each letter’s strokes). Serif fonts are common in print media , e.g., books and magazines,, where they’re more reader-friendly. A serif font is a typeface that has small decorative lines , called “feet”, at the end of each stroke in a letter.
Additional languages
In French, “À” is pronounced as a short open ah sound, similar to “a” in father. The different accents of the letter “A” include À — Á, Â, Ã, Ä, Å, à, á, â, ã, ä, and å. On Android and iOS devices — you can access accented letters by holding down the corresponding base letter on the virtual keyboard. Additionally (if you want to type uppercase letters), make sure to “turn caps lock ON” while you type the shortcuts. If you want to type these accented letters other than Microsoft Word, you may need to use other methods.
The letter ⟨a⟩ appears in various common digraphs — each with distinct sounds, particularly ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨aw⟩, ⟨ay⟩, ⟨ea⟩, and ⟨oa⟩. Besides the italic style (the script letter ⟨ɑ⟩), known as Latin alpha, is employed in other contexts contrasting with the Latin ⟨a⟩, such as within the International Phonetic Alphabet.