あ

Wikipedia

Stroke order

Character	あ
Unicode name	HIRAGANA LETTER A
Codepoint	U+3042

See also ぁ, and Appendix:Variations of "a"

Japanese

Etymology 1

The short form of are.

Alternative forms

• 吾

Pronunciation

• IPA: [ä]

Pronoun

あ (kanji 我, romaji a)

1. first-person personal pronoun; I, me
   • c. 759: Man'yōshū (book 14, poem #3456)

     宇都世美能 夜蘇許登乃敝波 思気久等母 安良蘇比可祢弖 安乎許登奈須那

   • c. 759: Man'yōshū (book 14, poem #3457)

     宇知日佐須 美夜能和我世波 夜麻登女乃 比射麻久其登尓 安乎和須良須奈

   • c. 759: Man'yōshū (book 14, poem #3458)

     奈勢能古夜 等里乃乎加恥志 奈可太乎礼 安乎祢思奈久与 伊久豆君麻弖尓

   • c. 759: Man'yōshū (book 14, poem #3471)

     思麻良久波 祢都追母安良牟乎 伊米能未尓 母登奈見要都追 安乎祢思奈久流

   • c. 1001–1014: Genji Monogatari (Yūgao)

     あが君、生き出で給へ。いと、いみじき目な見せ給ひそ

Derived terms

• 我 (are)

Etymology 2

Derived in the Heian period from writing the man'yōgana kanji 安 in the cursive sōsho style.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /a/

Syllable

あ (Hepburn romanization a)

1. The hiragana syllable あ (a), whose equivalent in katakana is ア (a). It is the first syllable of the gojūon order, and its position in gojūon tables is あ行あ段 (A-gyō, A-dan; “row A, section A”).

Related terms

• For a list of words starting with あ (a) see: Special:Allpages/あ

See also

• (Hiragana) 平仮名; あぁ, いぃ, うぅゔ, えぇ, おぉ, かゕが, きぎ, くぐ, けゖげ, こご, さざ, しじ, すず, せぜ, そぞ, ただ, ちぢ, つっづ, てで, とど, な, に, ぬ, ね, の, はばぱ, ひびぴ, ふぶぷ, へべぺ, ほぼぽ, ま, み, む, め, も, やゃ, ゆゅ, よょ, ら, り, る, れ, ろ, わゎ, ゐ, ゑ, を, ん, ー, ゝ, ゞ, ゟ

Etymology 3

Kanji reading

あ (romaji a)

• 亜: secondary
• 阿
• 唖
• 痾
• 鴉

References

• 2002 [c. 759], Akihiro Satake; Hideo Yamada, Rikio Kudō, Masao Ōtani, Yoshiyuki Yamazaki, Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 3: Man'yōshū 3 (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, ISBN 4-00-240003-4:
• 1958 May 18 [c. 1001-1014], Tokuhei Yamagishi, Koten Bungaku Taikei 14: Genji Monogatari 1 (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, ISBN 4-0006-0014-1: