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'あ' in hiragana or 'ア' in katakana (romanised ''a'') is one of the Japanese kana that each represent one mora. あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, and ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it is occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い. Additionally, it is the 36th letter in Iroha, after て, before さ. Its hiragana resembles the kana no combined with a cross. The Unicode for あ is U+3040, and the Unicode for ア is U+30A2.
The pronunciation is normally transcribed ; more precisely, it is or .

Form	Rōmaji	Hiragana	Katakana
Normal ''a''/''i''/''u''/''e''/''o'' (あ行 ''a-gyō'')	''a''	あ	ア
	''aa'', ''ah'' ''ā''	ああ, あぁ あー	アア, アァ アー

Contents

Derivation

Variant forms

Strokes

Representations in other writing systems

Derivation

The katakana ァ derives, via man'yōgana, from the kanji . The hiragana あ derives from the kanji .

Variant forms

Scaled-down versions of the kana (ぁ, ァ) are used to express morae foreign to the Japanese language, such as ファ (fa).

Strokes

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.

Representations in other writing systems

In Japanese Braille, あ or ア is represented as:

●	－
－	－
－	－

The Wabun code for あ or ア, is －－・－－.
In the Japanese phonetic alphabet, one would say "朝日のア" (Asahi no A.)