See also:ـا,أ[U+0623 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA ABOVE],ٵ[U+0675 ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA ALEF],اً,ٱ[U+0671 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WASLA],آ[U+0622 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH MADDA ABOVE],إ[U+0625 ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA BELOW],ا-,I[U+0049 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I],l[U+006C LATIN SMALL LETTER L],and1[U+0031 DIGIT ONE]
From theNabataean Aramaic letter𐢁(l,“aleph”), derived from thePhoenician letter𐤀(l,“ālef”), from theEgyptian hieroglyph𓃾. See also Classical Syriacܐ(l,“ālef”), Hebrewא(l,“alef”), Ancient GreekΑ(A), LatinA.
Although usually considered to be the first letter of theArabic alphabet, the smallhamza (ء(ʔ)) that sits on top ofأ(ʔ) is really the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and the tall column is its bearer. This entry only deals with the lower part, the bearer, which is calledأَلِف(ʔalif) and, without the hamza, is used to lengthen a precedinga.
Represents the back-vowel sound /ɑ/, unless a smallء is placed at the beginning of the word. In Kazakh, the Hamza marks that all vowels in the following word are fronted. If ا is the initial letter of a word and is representing a front vowel, it is combined with the hamza and the variant ٵ is used.
All word-initial vowels are proceeded by a glottal stop which is represented by anا. However in medial and final positions it is not a glottal stop and instead represents the phoneme /ɑː/~/ɒː/. If a word-initialا is representing the sound [ʔɑː]~[ʔɒː] it's usually written asآ.
ا on the Persian Wikipedia.Wikipediafa