Ā

Etymology
Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed by K. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in German Fraktur, and sporadically in Cyrillic.

Letter




Usage notes
Despite being an independent letter with its own position in the Latvian alphabet, Ā/ā, like all long vowels with macrons, is treated as a simple A/a in alphabetized lists (e.g., in dictionaries).

Etymology
From the perceived ease and speed of writing a macron (¯) compared to an umlaut (¨).