Latin alpha

Latin alpha (majuscule: Ɑ, minuscule: ɑ), script a, or single-story a is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on a handwritten form of lowercase a, and which is commonly typeset with the Greek lowercase alpha (α).

Usage

Although ⟨ɑ⟩ is normally just an allograph of ⟨a⟩, there are instances in which the two letters are distinguished:

• In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨ɑ⟩ represents an open back unrounded vowel, while ⟨a⟩ represents an open front unrounded vowel. It has the shape of a script-a.
• Also in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, ⟨Ɑ ɑ⟩ usually represents an open back unrounded vowel, while ⟨A a⟩ represents an open front unrounded vowel. The former is used in the orthographies of several languages of Cameroon, including: Feʼfeʼ Mbembe Mbo (?): but not Akoose, though it does have phonemes /aa/ and /ɑɑ/; nor Bakaka. in some languages, the script-a form (also called literacy form) of the letter ⟨A a⟩, with the lowercase much like the IPA ⟨ɑ⟩, is used and should not be confused with the Latin alpha ⟨Ɑ ɑ⟩ of the GACL; for example, in Muyang, the literacy ⟨A a⟩ represents an open-mid central unrounded vowel but it is not ⟨Ɑ ɑ⟩; the Latin alpha is not used.
• In typography, it is sometimes referred to as the single-story a, to distinguish it from double-story a.

In Cameroon languages, lowercase ⟨ɑ⟩ is typeset as a lowercase Greek alpha to better differentiate it from the letter a in script or italic form. The capital is typically typeset as a large Latin script a.

U+1D45ᵅ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL ALPHA is used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.

U+AB30ꬰ LATIN SMALL LETTER BARRED ALPHA is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system.

Latin turned alpha is used in IPA

U+AB64ꭤ LATIN SMALL LETTER INVERTED ALPHA is used in Americanist phonetic notation.

Typography

Encoding and forms

In Unicode, "Latin alpha" () and "Latin script a" () are considered to be the same character, which has an uppercase and a lowercase form and is referred to as "Latin letter alpha".

See also

• Latin turned alpha
• G, which also has two distinct minuscule forms