ا

Letter



 * 1) Although usually considered to be the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, the small hamza  that sits on top of  is really the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and the tall column is its bearer. This entry only deals with the lower part, the bearer, which is called  and, without the hamza, is used to lengthen a preceding a.

Symbol

 * 1) The first letter in traditional abjad order, which is used in place of numerals for list numbering (abjad numerals). It is followed by.

Pronunciation
After fatha: ـَا —

Combined with fatha: اَ —

Combined with kasra: اِ —

Combined with damma: اُ —

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Balti alphabet, written in the Perso-Arabic script

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Burushaski alphabet, written in the Perso-Arabic script

Pronoun

 * 1) they; third-person plural pronoun

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Xiao'erjing abjad.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Gujarati abjad

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the traditional alphabet chart of Kashmiri.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Kazakh in Arabic Script. It represents the Cyrillic letter А or Ә.

Usage notes
Represents the back-vowel sound /ɑ/, unless a small ء is placed at the beginning of the word. In Kazakh, the Hamza marks that all vowels in the following word are fronted. If ا is the initial letter of a word and is representing a front vowel, it is combined with the hamza and the variant ٵ is used.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Khowar abjad.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Kyrgyz in Arabic Script. It represents the Cyrillic letter А

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Pashto alphabet.

Usage notes

 * At the start of the word, the letter ا (alif) represents the consonant.
 * In the middle or end of a word, ا represents the vowel.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. Its name is.

Usage notes
All word-initial vowels are proceeded by a glottal stop which is represented by an. However in medial and final positions it is not a glottal stop and instead represents the phoneme /ɑː/~/ɒː/. If a word-initial is representing the sound [ʔɑː]~[ʔɒː] it's usually written as.

Etymology 2
.

Usage notes

 * This suffix mostly occurs with Arabic loanwords, but it is used somewhat peculiarly in Persian. Firstly, it also written out after words which, in Arabic, end in the feminine suffix, e.g. . More importantly, it may at times occur with native Persian words and with Arabic words in which the ending would be ungrammatical, e.g. , , , ,.

Preposition

 * 1)  from, since

Alternative forms

 * letter:, , ,

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Punjabi written in the Shahmukhi script.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Rajasthani abjad.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Urdu abjad.

Etymology 2
.

Prefix

 * 1) A negating prefix. non-, un-, a-, an-, etc.

Usage notes
This form is used before words that begin with consonants.

Letter

 * 1) The first letter of the Yorùbá alphabet in the Ajami Script.