User:PeterWilson/a

The letter a (upper case A) represents a vowel. It is used in different ways in English.

• The sounds it represents are varied. Some of the variation comes between different varieties of spoken English, where, for example, the pronunciation of 'ask' and 'dance' is very different from that in RP, which is itself different from the pronunciations in local British varieties of English such as most northern dialects like Geordie and Scots. The remarks that follow are based on RP usage.
  • As a short vowel,
    • it has the sound represented in the IPA as IPA: /æ/. It is to be heard in such words as 'cat', 'man' and back'.
    • In polysyllabic words, where '-a-' occurs in an unstressed syllable, it is often reduced to a schwa (IPA: /É™/), as in 'about', 'liable','applicant', 'social' and 'trial'. In some words, like 'village', this becomes more of an IPA: /ɪ/.
  • The realization of A as a long vowel in the pure sense is a clear distinction between 'posh' and 'ordinary' speech, and serves as a class marker. RP makes the vowel in such words as 'bath', 'half' and 'glass' with IPA: /ɑː/, where most other varieties use a form of IPA: /æ or a/. This serves to identify speakers of 'the Queen's English' from people who are less 'educated', or privileged in social terms.
  • When people mean the diphthongal sound by 'the long vowel', they are referring to the sound of the name of the letter in English - 'eh', to rhyme with 'say' and 'day' (IPA: /eÉ™/). (In some words such as 'vary', RP gives it the 'closing diphthong' IPA: /eɪ/.)

This sound is spelled in different ways in different words. The most usual, perhaps, i9s in the combination 'a' + consonant + e, but is is also represented by ei in such words as 'eight' and 'weight; ai in 'aid' and 'fail'; and by ay in 'say' and 'pay'.

• • A number of rather less common sounds:
    • IPA: /ɔː/, as in 'wall', 'quarter' and 'fall';
    • IPA: /É’/, as in 'swamp' and 'yacht';
    • IPA: /e/, as in 'many'.

• In writing, the letter a appears in a number of digraphs.
  • ae (see also -ae-) is a common representation, in British spelling, of the Greek pair αι ('ai') in such words as παιδ- (paid-) 'child', αἷμα (haima) 'blood' and αἴσθε- (aisthe-) 'perceive', 'feel'. It is to to be seen in such words as encyclopaedia, which American English spells as encyclopedia. In such words as 'pedagogue', the spelling with '-ae-' (paedagogue) now seems impossibly archaic, even in British English, although 'paedophile' and 'paediatrician' are usually given thus; in such words as 'anaesthetic', 'aesthete', 'haemoglobin' and 'anaemia', British retains, where American drops, the '-e-' representing the original ι. In word endings, all writers should retain -ae as the plural form of Latin nouns in '-a', such as

see also -a in Latin

• • ai
  • au aw

Etymological note: A, the first letter of the Roman alphabet, descends from the Phoenician symbol for a glottral stop, the sound at the beginning of its name, 'aleph (‘ox’). This letter, a consonant in Phoenician, was adopted by the Greeks as a vowel, A, to which they gave the name alpha. It was later adopted as A first by the Etruscans, then the Romans.

You may also want to see long vowel - short vowel.

Much of the information on this page has been taken from McArthur.