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A (kana)

a
hiragana
japanese hiragana a		 katakana
japanese katakana a
transliterationa
hiragana origin安
katakana origin阿
Man'yōgana阿 安 英 足 鞅
spelling kana朝日のア
(Asahi no "a")
kana gojūon
warayamahanatasakaa
wiri(yi)mihinichishikii
(wu)ruyumufunutsusukuu
were(ye)mehenetesekee
woroyomohonotosokoo
n
Kana modifiers and marks
Multi-moraic kana

A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel [a]. The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い. Additionally, it is the 36th letter in Iroha, after て, before さ. The Unicode for あ is U+3042, and the Unicode for ア is U+30A2.

Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō) 		a あ ア
aa
ā 		ああ, あぁ
あー 		アア, アァ
アー

Derivation

The katakana ア derives, via man'yōgana, from the left element of kanji 阿. The hiragana あ derives from cursive simplification of the kanji 安.

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぁ, ァ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as ファ (fa). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぁ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ (fu or hu) to form the digraphs くぁ kwa and ふぁ hwa, although others use a small ゎ instead. In hentaigana, a variant of あ is appeared with a stroke written exactly as wakanmuri. The version of the kana with dakuten (あ゙, ア゙) are used to represent either a gurgling sound, a voiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/), or other similarly articulated sound.

Stroke order

Stroke order in writing あ
Stroke order in writing あ
Stroke order in writing ア
Stroke order in writing ア
Stroke order in writing あ
Stroke order in writing あ

The Hiragana あ is made with three strokes:[1]

  1. At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
  2. A downward vertical stroke starting above and in the center of the last stroke.
  3. At the bottom, a loop like the Hiragana の.
Stroke order in writing ア
Stroke order in writing ア

The Katakana ア is made with two strokes:[2]

  1. At the top, a stroke consisting of a horizontal line and a short horizontal line proceeding downward and to the left.
  2. Starting at the end of the last stroke, a curved line proceeding downward and to the left.

Other communicative representations

  • Full Braille representation
あ / ア in Japanese Braille
あ / ア
a		 ああ / アー
ā		 +あ / +ー
chōon*
⠁ (braille pattern dots-1) ⠁ (braille pattern dots-1)⠒ (braille pattern dots-25) ⠒ (braille pattern dots-25)

* When lengthening "-a" morae in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as in standard katakana usage instead of adding an あ / ア.

Character information
Preview あ ア ｱ ㋐
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER A KATAKANA LETTER A HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER A CIRCLED KATAKANA A
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12354 U+3042 12450 U+30A2 65393 U+FF71 13008 U+32D0
UTF-8 227 129 130 E3 81 82 227 130 162 E3 82 A2 239 189 177 EF BD B1 227 139 144 E3 8B 90
Numeric character reference あ あ ア ア ｱ ｱ ㋐ ㋐
Shift JIS[3] 130 160 82 A0 131 65 83 41 177 B1
EUC-JP[4] 164 162 A4 A2 165 162 A5 A2 142 177 8E B1
GB 18030[5] 164 162 A4 A2 165 162 A5 A2 132 49 151 51 84 31 97 33 129 57 209 54 81 39 D1 36
EUC-KR[6] / UHC[7] 170 162 AA A2 171 162 AB A2
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[8] 198 166 C6 A6 198 249 C6 F9
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[9] 198 232 C6 E8 199 124 C7 7C
Character information
Preview ぁ ァ ｧ
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL A KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 12353 U+3041 12449 U+30A1 65383 U+FF67
UTF-8 227 129 129 E3 81 81 227 130 161 E3 82 A1 239 189 167 EF BD A7
Numeric character reference ぁ ぁ ァ ァ ｧ ｧ
Shift JIS[3] 130 159 82 9F 131 64 83 40 167 A7
EUC-JP[4] 164 161 A4 A1 165 161 A5 A1 142 167 8E A7
GB 18030[5] 164 161 A4 A1 165 161 A5 A1 132 49 150 51 84 31 96 33
EUC-KR[6] / UHC[7] 170 161 AA A1 171 161 AB A1
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[8] 198 165 C6 A5 198 248 C6 F8
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[9] 198 231 C6 E7 199 123 C7 7B

Footnotes

  1. ^ Gilhooly (2003) p. 62
  2. ^ Gilhooly (2003) p. 128
  3. ^ a b Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
  4. ^ a b Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
  5. ^ a b Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
  6. ^ a b Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
  7. ^ a b Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
  8. ^ a b Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
  9. ^ a b van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.

References

Retrieved from "https://en.Wik.ipedia.Pro.org/w/index.php?title=A_(kana)&oldid=1235152211"

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