/a/

For a note on how AWE organizes its group of articles on vowels, basically by aspects of sound and of writing, see category:vowels.

a

The letter a, the usual printed form of lower case A as a 'double storey' letter form (see more at A - a - a), is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the 'open front unrounded vowel'. This sound is not recognized as a standard phoneme in British RP. It does occur in some regional accents within the British Isles, in urban Lancashire, for example, where it forms the usual pronunciation of the vowels in 'handbag', and some varieties of Northern Irish speech; but it is more easily found in foreign languages, such as in German Rat or Mann, or French patte, etc.