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Ą (minuscule: ą) is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Creek, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Gwich'in, Tutchone, and Elfdalian alphabets. It is formed from the letter a and an ogonek and usually denotes a nasal a sound.
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Polish
In Polish and Kashubian ą is right after a in the alphabet but it never appears at the start of a word.
Originally ą was a nasal a but in modern times the pronunciation of this vowel has shifted to a nasal o sound.
Unlike those in French, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, meaning that they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel, or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel. For instance, ą might be more accurately represented as [ɔw̃] but for the sake of simplicity, it is usually represented as /ɔ̃/.
Some examples,
- obowiązek ("duty", "obligation"), pronounced [ɔbɔˈvjɔ̃zɛk]
- robią ("They are making"), pronounced [ˈrɔbjɔ̃]
- wciąż ("still"), pronounced [ˈftɕɔ̃ʂ]
Before all stops and affricates, it is pronounced as an oral vowel + nasal consonant. The nasal consonant may be either m (before p or b) or n (all other cases). For example,
- kąpać ("to bathe") is pronounced [ˈkɔmpatɕ]
- pająk ("spider") is pronounced [ˈpajɔŋk]
- Bądź cierpliwy! ("Be patient!") is pronounced [ˈbɔɲtɕ]
- oglądając ("(by) watching") is pronounced [ɔglɔnˈdajɔnts]
History
Polish ą evolved from long nasal a of medieval Polish, which developed into a short nasal o in the modern language. This medieval vowel, along with its short counterpart, evolved in turn from the merged nasal *ę and *ǫ of Late Proto-Slavic.
| Late Proto-Slavic | /ẽ/ and /õ/, represented by ę and ǫ |
| Medieval Polish | long and short /ã/, sometimes written approx. as ø |
| Modern Polish | long /ã/ → short /ɔ̃/, written ą short /ã/ → short /ɛ̃/, written ę |
Alternations
ą often alternates with ę, for example:
- tooth: ząb → zęby (teeth), thousand: tysiąc → tysięcy (thousands), snake: wąż → węże (snakes)
- husband in nominative: mąż → z mężem (with husband, in instrumental case)
- row in nominative: rząd → cztery razy z rzędu (four times in a row, in genitive case)
[but note that in words derived from rząd (government) the vowel does not change]
government in nominative: rząd → rozporządzenie rządu (government's ordinance, in genitive case)
- weight: ciężar → ciążyć (to weigh down, to be a burden), month: miesiąc → miesięczny (monthly)
Audio examples
Lithuanian
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
In Lithuanian, it formerly indicated a nasal a but the nasal quality has since been lost. In the modern language ą is pronounced as a long a.
The Americas
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
In some indigenous languages of the Americas, ą denotes a nasal a sound.
Elfdalian
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
Computer use
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
See also
| The ISO basic Latin alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aa | Bb | Cc | Dd | Ee | Ff | Gg | Hh | Ii | Jj | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Vv | Ww | Xx | Yy | Zz | |
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Letter A with diacritics
Letters using ogonek sign
history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters |
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 29 December 2008, at 04:10.
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