The Letter

Latin Extra
Condensed

Shelley Allegro

Why is A the first letter of our
alphabet? One source states that
it is because this letter repre¬
sents one of the most common
vowel sounds in the ancient
languages of the Western hemi¬
sphere. Other equally learned
sources would argue against
this rationale because there
were no true vowel sounds rep¬
resented in the Phoenician lan¬
guage. Why is A the first letter?
No one really knows. Why does
A look the way it does? No one
can be certain of this answer
either, and educated guesses
tend to dominate the telling of
the tale. A reasonably logical
chain of events, however, can
be reconstructed.

It is said that the Phoeni¬
cians chose the head of an ox to
represent their a sound (actual¬
ly, a glottal stop). The ox was a
very common, and very impor¬
tant, animal to the Phoenicians.
As the main power source for
the Phoenician’s heavy physical

something that evolved into
something that bore little
resemblance to the original ox
head symbol. In fact, by the
time it reached the Greeks in
about 400 b.c., it looked more
like our modern lowercase к
than a capital A.

VTA A

Copperplate
Gothic 30

Aachen

Bold

AG Old Face

Ш

Shaded

Futura Light

work, oxen plowed the fields,
harvested crops, and hauled
food to market. Some sources
even claim that the ox was also
the main course at many a
meal. A symbol for the ox
would have been the perfect
Phoenician logo for food. Since
food tops the “human needs”
list, it (somewhat) naturally
follows that an ox symbol
would also be the first letter of
the alphabet.

The Phoenicians first drew
the ox head glyph signifying
the a sound as a V with a cross¬
bar to distinguish the horns
from the muzzle. The letter
was called alef, the Phoenician
word for ox. Through cen¬
turies of writing (most of it
quickly, with little attention to
detail), the alef evolved into

The alef further evolved in
the hands of the Greeks, who
had no idea that it was sup¬
posed to look like an ox. First
they rotated it 90° so that it
pointed up; then they drew the
crossbar as a sloping stroke.
Finally, the crossbar became a
horizontal stroke so that the
character that resulted looked
almost as it does today. The
Greeks also changed the name
of the letter from alef to alpha.

The Romans acquired the
Greek alphabet through their
dealings with the Etruscan
traders of what is now northern
Italy, and again changed the
name of the first letter, this
time to ah. The long a sound,
the sound used as the name of
the letter A in English, was not
prevalent in the Latin language.

Helvetica Black

In his story of “How the
Alphabet was Made,” Rudyard
Kipling relates a very differ¬
ent—and charming—account
of the genesis of the letter A. In
Kipling’s story, the alphabet
was invented by a Neolithic
hunter and his daughter. While
traveling with her father one
day, the daughter got the no¬
tion that it would be useful to
be able to leave notes and send
messages. She asked her father
to make a sound, and he said,
“Ah!” The daughter decided
that her father looked liked a
carp feeding when he made
that sound. She then drew a
fish to represent it, but since
she was not a good artist and a
little impatient (as children
tend to be), she drew only the
fish’s head.

When her father saw the
drawing he said that it could be
mistaken for the head of almost
any fish, so he proceeded to
add the feeler that hangs across
the carp’s mouth.

His daughter copied the fin¬
ished drawing, again impa¬
tiently, not adding all the
details. Her drawing looked
like this:

And thus, according to Kipling,
the first letter of our alphabet
was born.

Cooper Black

Letraset Dolmen
Notre Dame

The width of the capital A
should be approximately three-
quarters of its height. In virtu¬
ally all roman designs the first
stroke of the A is lighter than
the second—in most cases a
hairline. Look closely at sans
serif designs like Helvetica or
Franklin Gothic and you will
notice that this trait has been
incorporated to an almost im¬
perceptible degree.

A Bodoni
/ % Helvetica

Unless it has a flat top, the
apex of the A should protrude
slightly above the normal cap
height. This is an optical
adjustment that keeps the letter
from looking short.

While the crossbar is nor¬
mally placed below the actual
center of the character to pre¬
vent visual distortion, it can be
moved above or below the
optical center to achieve a
desired effect, or to inject per¬
sonality into the character.

A

University Roman

Letraset Pleasure
Bold Shaded 1

Type designers should know,
however, that the more person¬
ality a letter has the more it is
limited to display applications.
For example, if a high crossbar

Stencil

creates a small counter, the
character may not only look
awkward but the counter may
also begin to fill in at text sizes.
The A’s crossbar is also almost
always horizontal, but in some
alphabets it is curved or in¬
clines slightly.

Some As have a top serif,
which is usually an extension of
the right diagonal stroke beyond
the intersection with the left
diagonal. Caslon and ITC Clear-
face are good examples. A few
typefaces have a top serif that
angles in the opposite direction,
to the right. ITC Berkeley Old-
style is such a design. Some
designs, like Charlemagne or
Italia, have a serif that is a hori¬
zontal stroke crossing the apex
of the two diagonals.

AAA

Caslon 540

ITC Berkeley
Oldstyle Book

Charlemagne

In most roman designs the
outer baseline serifs are longer
than the inner serifs.

Adobe Garamond
Italic Alternate

V.