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 , while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji . In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before . 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.

a
hiragana
japanese hiragana a
katakana
japanese katakana a
transliterationa
hiragana origin
katakana origin
Man'yōgana阿 安 英 足 鞅
spelling kana朝日のア
(Asahi no "a")
Form Rōmaji Hiragana Katakana
Normal a/i/u/e/o
(あ行 a-gyō)
a
aa
ā
ああ, あぁ
あー
アア, アァ
アー

Derivation

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

Variant forms

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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

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Stroke order in writing あ
 
Stroke order in writing ア
 
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 .
 
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

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  • Full Braille representation
あ / ア in Japanese Braille
あ / ア
a
ああ / アー
ā
+あ / +ー
chōon*
      

* 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
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
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

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  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

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