A
Example glyphs
Bengali-Assamese
Tibetan
Tamil
Thai	อ
Malayalam	അ
Sinhala	අ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	א
Greek	Α
Latin	A, Ɑ
Cyrillic	А, Я, Ҍ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ɐ/ /ə/ /ɔ/ /o/D /ɔː/E /ɑː/F
IAST transliteration	a A
ISCII code point	A4 (164)
^D in Thai ^E in Thai ^F in Khmer

A is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, A is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the "A" vowel inherently, and thus there is no modifier sign for "A" in Indic scripts.

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The letter अ was not used in the Aryabhata number system, and consonants with the inherent "a" vowel retained their base value.^[1]

Historic A

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. A as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . Like all Brahmic scripts, the Tocharian A is the inherent vowel for all consonant characters, apart from the alternate Fremdzeichen forms, which have the inherent vowel "Ä". In Kharoṣṭhī, the only independent vowel letter is for the inherent A, with all other independent vowels built from vowel marks added to A.

Brahmi A

The Brahmi letter , A, is probably derived from the Aramaic Alef , and is thus related to the modern Latin A and Greek Alpha.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi A can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[3] As the earliest and most geometric style of Brahmi, the letters found on the Edicts of Ashoka and other records from around that time are normally the reference form for Brahmi letters, with vowel marks not attested until later forms of Brahmi back-formed to match the geometric writing style.

Brahmi A historic forms

Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian A

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi .

A is the inherent vowel of all non-Fremdzeichen consonants in Tocharian

Ka	Kha	Ga	Gha	Ca	Cha	Ja	Jha	Nya	Ṭa	Ṭha	Ḍa	Ḍha	Ṇa
Ta	Tha	Da	Dha	Na	Pa	Pha	Ba	Bha	Ma	Ya	Ra	La	Va
Śa	Ṣa	Sa	Ha

Devanagari A

Devanagari A vowel

A (अ) is a vowel of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , after having gone through the Gupta letter . Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter અ, and the Modi letter 𑘀.

Bengali A

Bengali A vowel

A (অ) is a vowel of the Bengali abugida. It is derived from the Siddhaṃ letter , and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, अ.

Gujarati A

Guajarati independent A vowel.

A (અ) is a vowel of the Gujarati abugida. It is derived from the Devanagari A , and ultimately the Brahmi letter .

Javanese A

Telugu A

Telugu independent vowel A

A (అ) is a vowel of the Telugu abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . It is closely related to the Kannada letter ಅ. Like in other Indic scripts, "A" in Telugu is inherent in all consonants, and there is no vowel sign for the "A" vowel.

Malayalam A

Malayalam independent vowel A

A (അ) is a vowel of the Malayalam abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Grantha letter a. Like in other Indic scripts, "A" is the inherent vowel of Malayalam consonants, so there is no modifying vowel sign for A. As in most Indic scripts, independent Malayalam vowels do not decompose into A with a vowel sign attached, but rather are unique characters themselves. Independent vowel letters in Malayalam are used when a word begins with a vowel, rather than a consonant sound.

Odia A

Odia A vowel

A (ଅ) is a vowel of the Odia abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter a. Like in other Indic scripts, Odia consonants inherently contain the "a" vowel, so there is no modifying sign for indicating that vowel.

Thai script

O ang (อ) and Ho nokhuk (ฮ) are the forty-third and forty-fourth letters of the Thai script. Unlike many Indic scripts, Thai consonants do not form conjunct ligatures, and use the pinthu—an explicit virama with a dot shape—to indicate bare consonants.

Kaithi A

Kaithi independent vowel A.

A (𑂃) is a vowel of the Kaithi abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter A. Like in other Indic scripts, the Kaithi vowel A is an independent letter and lacks a vowel sign, as "a" is inherent to the consonant letters.

Comparison of A

The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including A, are related as well.

Comparison of A in different scripts

Aramaic Kharoṣṭhī 𐨀 Ashoka Brahmi Kushana Brahmi[lower-alpha 1] Tocharian[lower-alpha 2] Gupta Brahmi Pallava Kadamba - Bhaiksuki 𑰀 Siddhaṃ Grantha 𑌅 Cham ꨀ Sinhala අ Pyu / Old Mon[lower-alpha 3] - Tibetan Newa 𑐀 Ahom 𑜒 Malayalam അ Telugu అ Burmese အ Lepcha ᰣ Ranjana Saurashtra ꢂ Dives Akuru 𑤀 Kannada ಅ Kayah Li ꤢ Limbu ᤀᤠ Soyombo[lower-alpha 4] - Khmer អ Tamil Chakma 𑄃𑄧 Tai Tham ᩋ Meitei Mayek ꯑ Gaudi - Thai อ / ฮ Lao ອ Tai Le ᥣ Marchen 𑲏 Tirhuta 𑒁 New Tai Lue ᦀ Tai Viet ꪮ / ꪯ Aksara Kawi - 'Phags-pa ꡝ Odia ଅ Sharada 𑆃 Rejang ꥆ Batak ᯀ Buginese ᨕ Zanabazar Square 𑨀 Bengali-Assamese Takri 𑚀 Javanese ꦄ Balinese ᬅ Makasar 𑻱 Hangul[lower-alpha 5] - Northern Nagari - Dogri 𑠀 Laṇḍā - Sundanese ᮃ Baybayin ᜀ Modi 𑘀 Gujarati અ Khojki 𑈀 Khudabadi 𑊰 Mahajani 𑅐 Tagbanwa ᝠ Devanagari Nandinagari 𑦠 Kaithi Gurmukhi ਅ Multani 𑊀 Buhid ᝀ Canadian Syllabics[lower-alpha 6] - Soyombo[lower-alpha 7] - Sylheti Nagari ꠀ Gunjala Gondi 𑵠 Masaram Gondi[lower-alpha 8] 𑴀 Hanuno'o ᜠ Notes ↑ The middle "Kushana" form of Brahmi is a later style that emerged as Brahmi scripts were beginning to proliferate. Gupta Brahmi was definitely a stylistic descendant from Kushana, but other Brahmi-derived scripts may have descended from earlier forms. ↑ Tocharian is probably derived from the middle period "Kushana" form of Brahmi, although artifacts from that time are not plentiful enough to establish a definite succession. ↑ Pyu and Old Mon are probably the precursors of the Burmese script, and may be derived from either the Pallava or Kadamba script ↑ May also be derived from Devangari (see bottom left of table) ↑ The Origin of Hangul from 'Phags-pa is one of limited influence, inspiring at most a few basic letter shapes. Hangul does not function as an Indic abugida. ↑ Although the basic letter forms of the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics were derived from handwritten Devanagari letters, this abugida indicates vowel sounds by rotations of the letter form, rather than the use of vowel diacritics as is standard in Indic abugidas. ↑ May also be derived from Ranjana (see above) ↑ Masaram Gondi acts as an Indic abugida, but its letterforms were not derived from any single precursor script.

Character encodings of A

Most Indic scripts are encoded in the Unicode Standard, and as such the letter A in those scripts can be represented in plain text with unique codepoint. A from several modern-use scripts can also be found in legacy encodings, such as ISCII.

Character information

Preview							అ		ଅ		ಅ		അ		અ		ਅ
Unicode name	GURMUKHI LETTER A		BENGALI LETTER A		TAMIL LETTER A		TELUGU LETTER A		ORIYA LETTER A		KANNADA LETTER A		MALAYALAM LETTER A		GUJARATI LETTER A		GURMUKHI LETTER A
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2565	U+0A05	2437	U+0985	2949	U+0B85	3077	U+0C05	2821	U+0B05	3205	U+0C85	3333	U+0D05	2693	U+0A85	2565	U+0A05
UTF-8	224 168 133	E0 A8 85	224 166 133	E0 A6 85	224 174 133	E0 AE 85	224 176 133	E0 B0 85	224 172 133	E0 AC 85	224 178 133	E0 B2 85	224 180 133	E0 B4 85	224 170 133	E0 AA 85	224 168 133	E0 A8 85
Numeric character reference	ਅ	ਅ	অ	অ	அ	அ	అ	అ	ଅ	ଅ	ಅ	ಅ	അ	അ	અ	અ	ਅ	ਅ
ISCII	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4	164	A4

Character information

Preview	Ashoka Kushana Gupta		𐨀				𑌅
Unicode name	BRAHMI LETTER A		KHAROSHTHI LETTER A		SIDDHAM LETTER A		GRANTHA LETTER A
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	69637	U+11005	68096	U+10A00	71040	U+11580	70405	U+11305
UTF-8	240 145 128 133	F0 91 80 85	240 144 168 128	F0 90 A8 80	240 145 150 128	F0 91 96 80	240 145 140 133	F0 91 8C 85
UTF-16	55300 56325	D804 DC05	55298 56832	D802 DE00	55301 56704	D805 DD80	55300 57093	D804 DF05
Numeric character reference	𑀅	𑀅	𐨀	𐨀	𑖀	𑖀	𑌅	𑌅

Character information

Preview			ꡝ		𑨀		𑐀		𑰀		𑆃
Unicode name	TIBETAN LETTER A		PHAGS-PA LETTER A		ZANABAZAR SQUARE LETTER A		NEWA LETTER A		BHAIKSUKI LETTER A		SHARADA LETTER A
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	3944	U+0F68	43101	U+A85D	72192	U+11A00	70656	U+11400	72704	U+11C00	70019	U+11183
UTF-8	224 189 168	E0 BD A8	234 161 157	EA A1 9D	240 145 168 128	F0 91 A8 80	240 145 144 128	F0 91 90 80	240 145 176 128	F0 91 B0 80	240 145 134 131	F0 91 86 83
UTF-16	3944	0F68	43101	A85D	55302 56832	D806 DE00	55301 56320	D805 DC00	55303 56320	D807 DC00	55300 56707	D804 DD83
Numeric character reference	ཨ	ཨ	ꡝ	ꡝ	𑨀	𑨀	𑐀	𑐀	𑰀	𑰀	𑆃	𑆃

• U+1A6C is widely misencoded as U+1A60+1A4B, which is intended for a distinctive but as yet unattested subscripting of the letter in the Khmer style.

Character information

Preview	𑘀		𑦠		ꠀ		𑵠
Unicode name	MODI LETTER A		NANDINAGARI LETTER A		SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER A		GUNJALA GONDI LETTER A		KAITHI LETTER A
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	71168	U+11600	72096	U+119A0	43008	U+A800	73056	U+11D60	69763	U+11083
UTF-8	240 145 152 128	F0 91 98 80	240 145 166 160	F0 91 A6 A0	234 160 128	EA A0 80	240 145 181 160	F0 91 B5 A0	240 145 130 131	F0 91 82 83
UTF-16	55301 56832	D805 DE00	55302 56736	D806 DDA0	43008	A800	55303 56672	D807 DD60	55300 56451	D804 DC83
Numeric character reference	𑘀	𑘀	𑦠	𑦠	ꠀ	ꠀ	𑵠	𑵠	𑂃	𑂃

References