A (kana)

a
hiragana katakana
transliteration	a
hiragana origin	安
katakana origin	阿
Man'yōgana	阿 安 英 足 鞅
spelling kana	朝日のア (Asahi no "a")

A (hiragana: あ, katakana: ア) is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel [a]. 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.