Ā, lowercase ā, is a
grapheme, a Latin
A with a
macron, is used in several orthographies.In the
Latvian alphabet, Ā represents a distinct
vowel and comes after A and before B in alphabetical order: for instance baznīca comes before bārda in a Latvian dictionary. It is considered as a separate letter in the Latvian alphabet. Ā is used to denote a long A in Latvian.In some languages Ā is used to denote a long A. Examples are the
Polynesian languages, including
Māori, some
romanizations of
Japanese (
rōmaji) and
Arabic, and some
Latin texts (especially for learners). It is used in some orthography-based transcriptions of English to represent the diphthong [eɪ] ([eː] in some dialects), and also in commercial names such as
Drāno and Powerāde.
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