Cyrillic Small Letter A

а is the Cyrillic lowercase a, the first letter of alphabets such as Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian. It usually stands for an open "ah" vowel, with details set by each language. In a Latin-looking web address it can pass for Latin a while being a different character.

Text symbol

What а means

It is the lowercase A of Cyrillic writing.

Cyrillic is used by several languages, so this letter alone does not tell you which language a word is written in. Its exact sound follows that language's spelling rules.

Early Slavic writing was used for Christian translations in the 9th century. The earliest surviving Cyrillic manuscripts date to the 10th century and use Old Church Slavonic, an early Slavic literary language. Cyrillic and Glagolitic were distinct early Slavic scripts; Cyrillic later displaced Glagolitic in Eastern Orthodox lands.

Ordinary in Cyrillic words; a possible trap in Latin-looking web addresses.

Check a link's spelling carefully; familiar-looking letters can belong to different scripts.

Part of collections

Ukrainian Alphabet & Letters

Faux Cyrillic Letters

Who writes а

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Don't confuse it with

Latin Small Letter A

Cyrillic а and Latin a are different characters, though many fonts draw them identically. A web address can mix scripts without showing the difference.

Alphabet

33 letters

АаБ бВ вГ гД дЕ еЁ ёЖ жЗ зИ иЙ йК кЛ лМ мН нО оП пР рС сТ тУ уФ фХ хЦ цЧ чШ шЩ щЪ ъЫ ыЬ ьЭ эЮ юЯ я

Questions people ask

Why does а show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.