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A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, [1] [2] used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced / ˈeɪ / AY ), plural aes. [nb 1] [2] It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. [3]
Letter. A printed page showing different alphabets, fonts and sizes. This one is from 1728. In languages that use an alphabet, for example English, each symbol in the alphabet is a letter. Letters represent sounds when the language is spoken. Some languages do not use letters for writing: Chinese, for example, uses "ideograms".
A vowel is a particular kind of speech sound made by changing the shape of the upper vocal tract, or the area in the mouth above the tongue. In English it is important to know that there is a difference between a vowel sound and a [letter] in the [alphabet]. In English there are five vowel letters in the alphabet.
For the distinction between [ ], / / and , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a ...
Latin-script alphabet. A Latin-script alphabet ( Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet) is an alphabet that uses letters of the Latin script. The 21-letter archaic Latin alphabet and the 23-letter classical Latin alphabet belong to the oldest of this group. [1] The 26-letter modern Latin alphabet is the newest of this group.
The Old English Latin alphabet generally consisted of about 24 letters, and was used for writing Old English from the 8th to the 12th centuries. Of these letters, most were directly adopted from the Latin alphabet, two were modified Latin letters ( Æ, Ð ), and two developed from the runic alphabet ( Ƿ, Þ ). The letters Q and Z were ...
Definition and usage. A letter is a type of grapheme, the smallest functional unit within a writing system. Letters are graphemes that broadly correspond to phonemes, the smallest functional units of sound in speech. Similarly to how phonemes are combined to form spoken words, letters may be combined to form written words.
