Ą

Ą (minuscule: ą) is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Creek, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Hocąk, Mescalero, Gwich'in, Tutchone, and Elfdalian alphabets. It is formed from the letter a and an ogonek and usually denotes a nasal a sound.

1 Polish
2 Lithuanian
3 The Americas
4 Elfdalian
5 Computing codes
6 See also

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. It is most commonly pronounced as /ɔw̃/, /ɔn/, /ɔm/.

Unlike French but rather like Portuguese ão, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, meaning that they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel [ɔw̃], or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel. For the sake of simplicity, it is sometimes represented as /ɔ̃/.

Some examples,

obowiązek ("duty", "obligation"), pronounced [ɔbɔˈvjɔw̃zɛk]
robią ("They are making"), pronounced [ˈrɔbjɔw̃]
wciąż ("still"), pronounced [ˈftɕɔw̃ʂ]

Before all stops and affricates, it is pronounced as an oral vowel + nasal consonant, with /ɔn/ appearing before most consonants, while /ɔm/ appears before p or b. For example,

kąpać ("to bathe") is pronounced [ˈkɔmpatɕ]
pająk ("spider") is pronounced [ˈpajɔŋk]
bądź (imperative be), as in Bądź cierpliwy! ("Be patient!") is pronounced [ˈbɔɲtɕ]
oglądając ("(by) watching") is pronounced [ɔɡlɔnˈdajɔnts]

Loss of all nasal quality is rare with ą, occurring only before Ł, thus, zajął [ˈzajɔw].

In dialects of some regions, ą in final position is also pronounced as /ɔm/, thus, robią is occasionally pronounced as [ˈrɔbjɔm].

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.

Evolution
Early Proto-Slavic	em/en and am/an
Late Proto-Slavic	/ẽ/ and /õ/, transcribed ⟨ę⟩ and ⟨ǫ⟩
Medieval Polish	short and long /ã/, sometimes written approx. ⟨ø⟩
Modern Polish	short /ã/ → /ɛw̃/, /ɛn/, /ɛm/, written ⟨ę⟩ long /ã/ → /ɔw̃/, /ɔn/, /ɔm/, written ⟨ą⟩

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)
weight: ciężar → ciążyć (to weigh down, to be a burden), month: miesiąc → miesięczny (monthly), a judge: sędzia → sądzić (to judge, think)
row in nominative: rząd → cztery razy z rzędu (four times in a row, in genitive case)

However, in words derived from rząd (government), the vowel does not change. Thus, government in nominative: rząd → rozporządzenie rządu (government's ordinance, in genitive case)

Audio examples

(snake)
(husband)

Lithuanian

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

In some indigenous languages of the Americas, ą denotes a nasal a sound.

Elfdalian

Computing codes

character	Ą		ą
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH OGONEK		LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH OGONEK
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	260	0104	261	0105
UTF-8	196 132	C4 84	196 133	C4 85
Numeric character reference	Ą	Ą	ą	ą
CP 775	181	B5	208	D0
Windows-1250	165	A5	185	B9
Windows-1257	192	C0	224	E0
ISO-8859-2 and ISO-8859-4	161	A1	177	B1
Mac Central European	132	84	136	88

Letter A with diacritics

Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Áá	Àà	Ăă	Ắắ	Ằằ	Ẵẵ	Ẳẳ	Ââ	Ấấ	Ầầ	Ẫẫ	Ẩẩ	Ǎǎ	Åå	Ǻǻ	Ää	Ǟǟ	Ãã	Ȧȧ	Ǡǡ	Ąą	Āā	Ảả	Ȁȁ	Ȃȃ	Ạạ
Ặặ	Ậậ	Ḁḁ	Ⱥⱥ	ᶏ	Ɐɐ	Ɑɑ
Letters using ogonek sign ( ◌̨ )
Ąą	Ą̈ą̈	Ęę	Į į	Ǫǫ	Ǫ̈ǫ̈	Ųų
Related
History Palaeography Derivations Diacritics Punctuation Numerals Unicode List of letters ISO/IEC 646

Ą

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