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")

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.

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

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

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 .
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" syllables 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
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode12354U+304212450U+30A265393U+FF7113008U+32D0
UTF-8227 129 130E3 81 82227 130 162E3 82 A2239 189 177EF BD B1227 139 144E3 8B 90
Numeric character referenceああアアアア㋐㋐
Shift JIS[3]130 16082 A0131 6583 41177B1
EUC-JP[4]164 162A4 A2165 162A5 A2142 1778E B1
GB 18030[5]164 162A4 A2165 162A5 A2132 49 151 5184 31 97 33129 57 209 5481 39 D1 36
EUC-KR[6] / UHC[7]170 162AA A2171 162AB A2
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[8]198 166C6 A6198 249C6 F9
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[9]198 232C6 E8199 124C7 7C
Character information
Preview
Unicode name HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL A KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechex
Unicode12353U+304112449U+30A165383U+FF67
UTF-8227 129 129E3 81 81227 130 161E3 82 A1239 189 167EF BD A7
Numeric character referenceぁぁァァァァ
Shift JIS[3]130 15982 9F131 6483 40167A7
EUC-JP[4]164 161A4 A1165 161A5 A1142 1678E A7
GB 18030[5]164 161A4 A1165 161A5 A1132 49 150 5184 31 96 33
EUC-KR[6] / UHC[7]170 161AA A1171 161AB A1
Big5 (non-ETEN kana)[8]198 165C6 A5198 248C6 F8
Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS)[9]198 231C6 E7199 123C7 7B

Footnotes

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

References

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