* 'A' or 'a' is the first letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet and others globally. * It is named 'ay' in English. * It resembles the Ancient Greek letter alpha, and its uppercase form consists of two slanting sides of a triangle crossed by a horizontal bar. * In lowercase, it may appear as one of two forms: a double-storey 'a' (|a|) or a single-storey 'a' (|ɑ|), the latter being commonly used in handwriting, child-friendly fonts, and italic types. * In English, 'a' functions as the indefinite article, with an alternative form 'an'.