# A (kana)

kana gojūon :
| wa | ra | ya | ma | ha | na | ta | sa | ka | a |
| wi | ri | (yi) | mi | hi | ni | chi | shi | ki | i |
| (wu) | ru | yu | mu | fu | nu | tsu | su | ku | u |
| we | re | (ye) | me | he | ne | te | se | ke | e |
| wo | ro | yo | mo | ho | no | to | so | ko | o |
| | | | n | | | | | | |
Kana modifiers and marks :
sokuonfu (gemination)
yōon (palatalization)
chōonpu (vowel lengthener)
Iteration marks
dakuten/handakuten (voiced & semi-voiced marks) :
Multi-moraic kana :
iu
kashiko
koto
sama
shite
toki
tomo
nari
mairasesoro
yori :
vte :
A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel. The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い. Additionally, it is the 36th letter in Iroha, after て, before さ. The Unicode for あ is U+3042, and the Unicode for ア is U+30A2.
| Form | Rōmaji | Hiragana | Katakana |
| Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō) | a | あ | ア |
| Normal a/i/u/e/o (あ行 a-gyō) | aa ā | ああ, あぁ あー | アア, アァ アー |

## Derivation

The katakana ア derives, via man'yōgana, from the left element of kanji 阿. The hiragana あ derives from cursive simplification of the kanji 安.

## Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぁ, ァ) are used to express sounds foreign to the Japanese language, such as ファ (fa). In some Okinawan writing systems, a small ぁ is also combined with the kana く (ku) and ふ (fu or hu) to form the digraphs くぁ kwa and ふぁ hwa, although others use a small ゎ instead. In hentaigana, a variant of あ is appeared with a stroke written exactly as wakanmuri. The version of the kana with dakuten (あ゙, ア゙) are used to represent either a gurgling sound, a voiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/), or other similarly articulated sound.

## Stroke order

| Stroke order in writing あ | Stroke order in writing ア |
The Hiragana あ is made with three strokes:
* At the top, a horizontal stroke from left to right.
* A downward vertical stroke starting above and in the center of the last stroke.
* At the bottom, a loop like the Hiragana の.
The Katakana ア is made with two strokes:
* At the top, a stroke consisting of a horizontal line and a short horizontal line proceeding downward and to the left.
* Starting at the end of the last stroke, a curved line proceeding downward and to the left.

## Other communicative representations

| Japanese radiotelephony alphabet | Wabun code |
| 朝日のア Asahi no "A" | ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ |
| Japanese Navy Signal Flag | Japanese semaphore | Japanese manual syllabary (fingerspelling) | Braille dots-1 Japanese Braille |
* Full Braille representation
あ / ア in Japanese Braille :
| あ / ア a | ああ / アー ā | +あ / +ー chōon* |
* When lengthening "-a" morae in Japanese braille, a chōon is always used, as in standard katakana usage instead of adding an あ / ア.
* Computer encodings
Character information :
| Preview | あ | あ | ア | ア | ｱ | ｱ | ㋐ | ㋐ |
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER A | HIRAGANA LETTER A | KATAKANA LETTER A | KATAKANA LETTER A | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER A | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER A | CIRCLED KATAKANA A | CIRCLED KATAKANA A |
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 12354 | U+3042 | 12450 | U+30A2 | 65393 | U+FF71 | 13008 | U+32D0 |
| UTF-8 | 227 129 130 | E3 81 82 | 227 130 162 | E3 82 A2 | 239 189 177 | EF BD B1 | 227 139 144 | E3 8B 90 |
| Numeric character reference | &#12354; | &#x3042; | &#12450; | &#x30A2; | &#65393; | &#xFF71; | &#13008; | &#x32D0; |
| Shift JIS | 130 160 | 82 A0 | 131 65 | 83 41 | 177 | B1 | | |
| EUC-JP | 164 162 | A4 A2 | 165 162 | A5 A2 | 142 177 | 8E B1 | | |
| GB 18030 | 164 162 | A4 A2 | 165 162 | A5 A2 | 132 49 151 51 | 84 31 97 33 | 129 57 209 54 | 81 39 D1 36 |
| EUC-KR / UHC | 170 162 | AA A2 | 171 162 | AB A2 | | | | |
| Big5 (non-ETEN kana) | 198 166 | C6 A6 | 198 249 | C6 F9 | | | | |
| Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS) | 198 232 | C6 E8 | 199 124 | C7 7C | | | | |
Character information :
| Preview | ぁ | ぁ | ァ | ァ | ｧ | ｧ |
| Unicode name | HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL A | HIRAGANA LETTER SMALL A | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A | KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A | HALFWIDTH KATAKANA LETTER SMALL A |
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 12353 | U+3041 | 12449 | U+30A1 | 65383 | U+FF67 |
| UTF-8 | 227 129 129 | E3 81 81 | 227 130 161 | E3 82 A1 | 239 189 167 | EF BD A7 |
| Numeric character reference | &#12353; | &#x3041; | &#12449; | &#x30A1; | &#65383; | &#xFF67; |
| Shift JIS | 130 159 | 82 9F | 131 64 | 83 40 | 167 | A7 |
| EUC-JP | 164 161 | A4 A1 | 165 161 | A5 A1 | 142 167 | 8E A7 |
| GB 18030 | 164 161 | A4 A1 | 165 161 | A5 A1 | 132 49 150 51 | 84 31 96 33 |
| EUC-KR / UHC | 170 161 | AA A1 | 171 161 | AB A1 | | |
| Big5 (non-ETEN kana) | 198 165 | C6 A5 | 198 248 | C6 F8 | | |
| Big5 (ETEN / HKSCS) | 198 231 | C6 E7 | 199 123 | C7 7B | | |

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gilhooly (2003) p. 62
* ↑ Gilhooly (2003) p. 128
* 1 2 Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-03-08]. "Shift-JIS to Unicode".
* 1 2 Unicode Consortium; IBM. "EUC-JP-2007". International Components for Unicode.
* 1 2 Standardization Administration of China (SAC) (2005-11-18). GB 18030-2005: Information Technology—Chinese coded character set.
* 1 2 Unicode Consortium; IBM. "IBM-970". International Components for Unicode.
* 1 2 Steele, Shawn (2000). "cp949 to Unicode table". Microsoft / Unicode Consortium.
* 1 2 Unicode Consortium (2015-12-02) [1994-02-11]. "BIG5 to Unicode table (complete)".
* 1 2 van Kesteren, Anne. "big5". Encoding Standard. WHATWG.