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Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed byK. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in GermanFraktur, and sporadically inCyrillic.
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Ā (upper case,lower caseā)
Despite being an independent letter with its own position in the Latvian alphabet,Ā/ā, like all long vowels with macrons, is treated as a simpleA/a in alphabetized lists (e.g., in dictionaries).
From the perceived ease and speed of writing amacron (¯) compared to anumlaut (¨).
Ā (upper case,lower caseā)
