InAncient Greek, alpha was pronounced[a] and could be eitherphonemically long ([aː]) or short ([a]). Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with amacron andbreve today:Ᾱᾱ, Ᾰᾰ.
ὥρα =ὥρᾱhōrāGreek pronunciation:[hɔ́ːraː] "a time"
In thepolytonic orthography of Greek, alpha, like other vowel letters, can occur with severaldiacritic marks: any of three accent symbols (ά, ὰ, ᾶ), and either of two breathing marks (ἁ, ἀ), as well as combinations of these. It can also combine with theiota subscript (ᾳ).
Greek grammar
In theAttic–Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha[aː] fronted to[ɛː] (eta). In Ionic, the shift took place in all positions. In Attic, the shift did not take place afterepsilon,iota, andrho (ε, ι, ρ;e, i, r). InDoric andAeolic, long alpha is preserved in all positions.[3]
Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefixἀ- orἀν-a-, an-, added to words to negate them. It originates from theProto-Indo-European*n̥- (syllabic nasal) and iscognate with Englishun-.
Copulative a is the Greek prefixἁ- orἀ-ha-, a-. It comes from Proto-Indo-European*sm̥.
Most occurrences of alpha in science are the lowercase alpha. The uppercase letter alpha is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercaseLatin A.
The proportionality operator "∝" (inUnicode: U+221D) is sometimes mistaken for alpha.
ThePhoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek in the early 8th century BC, perhaps inEuboea.[9] The majority of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet were adopted into Greek with much the same sounds as they had had in Phoenician, butʼāleph, the Phoenician letter representing theglottal stop[ʔ],was adopted as representing the vowel[a]; similarly,hē[h] andʽayin[ʕ] are Phoenician consonants that became Greek vowels,epsilon[e] andomicron[o], respectively.
Plutarch
Plutarch, inMoralia,[10] presents a discussion on why the letter alpha stands first in the alphabet. Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being aBoeotian, has to say forCadmus, thePhoenician who reputedly settled inThebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placingalpha first because it is the Phoenician name forox—which, unlikeHesiod,[11] the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities. "Nothing at all," Plutarch replied. He then added that he would rather be assisted byLamprias, his own grandfather, than byDionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. For Lamprias had said that the first articulate sound made is "alpha", because it is very plain and simple—the air coming off the mouth does not require any motion of the tongue—and therefore this is the first sound that children make.
According to Plutarch's natural order of attribution of thevowels to theplanets, alpha was connected with theMoon.
As the first letter of the alphabet, Alpha as aGreek numeral came to represent the number1.Therefore, Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to the "first", or "primary", or "principal" (most significant) occurrence or status of a thing.
The New Testament has God declaring himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13, KJV, and see also1:8).
Consequently, the term "alpha" has also come to be used to denote "primary" position in social hierarchy, examples being the concept of dominant"alpha" members in groups of animals.
^TheMATHEMATICAL symbols are only to be used in math. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.
^Rabinowitz, Harold; Vogel, Suzanne (2009).The manual of scientific style: a guide for authors, editors, and researchers (1st ed.). Amsterdam Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Academic Press. p. 363.ISBN978-0-12-373980-3.The primary designation system for bright stars, called Bayer designations… The Greek letters are assigned in order (α,β, γ,δ etc.) according to brightness.
^Weisstein, Eric W."Stoneham Number".mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved31 January 2025.
^The date of the earliest inscribed objects; A.W. Johnston, "The alphabet", in N. Stampolidis and V. Karageorghis, eds,Sea Routes from Sidon to Huelva: Interconnections in the Mediterranean 2003:263-76, summarizes the present scholarship on the dating.
