Latin alpha

The letter A.

Latin alpha (Majuscule: Ɑ, Minuscule: ɑ) or script a, is a letter of the Latin alphabet, based on one lowercase form of a, or on the Greek lowercase alpha (α). Although normally the letter a admits variation, it must be carefully distinguished from ɑ where both are used.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ɑ represents an open back unrounded vowel, while a represents an open front unrounded vowel.

Ɑ, ɑ is a letter in the alphabet of the Fe'fe' language. Its uppercase form is simply an enlarged version of the lowercase.

[edit] Encoding

The minuscule form was present in Unicode 1.0, as U+0251 LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT A. In version 1.1.5, its name was changed to LATIN SMALL LETTER ALPHA. The majuscule form is present in Unicode 5.1 as U+2C6D.