User:PeterWilson/a

• In writing, the letter a appears in a number of digraphs.
  • ae (see also -ae-) is a common representation, in British spelling, of the Greek pair αι ('ai') in such words as παιδ- (paid-) 'child', αἷμα (haima) 'blood' and αἴσθε- (aisthe-) 'perceive', 'feel'. It is to to be seen in such words as encyclopaedia, which American English spells as encyclopedia. In such words as 'pedagogue', the spelling with '-ae-' (paedagogue) now seems impossibly archaic, even in British English, although 'paedophile' and 'paediatrician' are usually given thus; in such words as 'anaesthetic', 'aesthete', 'haemoglobin' and 'anaemia', British retains, where American drops, the '-e-' representing the original ι. In word endings, all writers should retain -ae as the plural form of Latin nouns in '-a', such as

see also -a in Latin

• • ai
  • au aw

Etymological note: A, the first letter of the Roman alphabet, descends from the Phoenician symbol for a glottral stop, the sound at the beginning of its name, 'aleph (‘ox’). This letter, a consonant in Phoenician, was adopted by the Greeks as a vowel, A, to which they gave the name alpha. It was later adopted as A first by the Etruscans, then the Romans.

You may also want to see long vowel - short vowel.

Much of the information on this page has been taken from McArthur.