a
hiragana katakana
transliteration	a
hiragana origin	安
katakana origin	阿
Man'yōgana	阿 安 英 足 鞅
spelling kana	朝日のア (Asahi no "a")

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.

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 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 の.

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

Japanese radiotelephony alphabet	Wabun code
朝日のア Asahi no "A"	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Japanese Navy Signal Flag	Japanese semaphore	Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling)	Braille dots-1 Japanese Braille

• Full Braille representation

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

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

• Computer encodings

Footnotes

References

Look up あ, ぁ, ア, or ァ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Gilhooly, Helen (2003) [1999]. Beginner's Japanese Script. Teach Yourself. London: Hodder Headline. ISBN 0-340-86024-3. OCLC 56469680.