U+0251 "ɑ" Latin Small Letter Alpha Unicode Character

U+0251 "ɑ" Latin Small Letter Alpha is a graphic symbol that represents the Latin script equivalent of the Greek alpha, though it is visually distinct from the Latin "a" with its typically single-story, rounded shape. This character is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to denote the open back unrounded vowel sound, as heard in the English word "father" or the French word "pâte". It is encoded in the Unicode standard as part of the Latin Extended-B block and is often confused with the lowercase Greek alpha or the Latin letter "a", but serves a specific phonetic purpose in linguistics for transcription and study of spoken language.

General Properties

Code Point	U+0251
Version Added	1.1
Name	Latin Small Letter Alpha
Unicode 1.0 Name	Latin Small Letter Script A
Block	IPA Extensions
General Category	Lowercase Letter
Canonical Combining Class	Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class	Left To Right

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding	ɑ
HTML Hex Encoding	ɑ
UTF-8 Encoding	0xC9 0x91
UTF-16 Encoding	0x0251
UTF-32 Encoding	0x00000251
C/C++/Java Escape	\u0251

Unicode Properties

NFC Quick Check	Yes
NFD Quick Check	Yes
NFKC Quick Check	Yes
NFKD Quick Check	Yes
Numeric Type	None
Numeric Value	NaN
Line Break	Alphabetic
East Asian Width	Ambiguous
Lowercase	Yes
Simple Uppercase Code Point	"Ɑ" U+2C6D Latin Capital Letter Alpha
Simple Titlecase Code Point	"Ɑ" U+2C6D Latin Capital Letter Alpha
Uppercase Code Point	"Ɑ" U+2C6D Latin Capital Letter Alpha
Titlecase Code Point	"Ɑ" U+2C6D Latin Capital Letter Alpha
Cased	Yes
Changes When Casemapped	Yes
Changes When Titlecased	Yes
Changes When Uppercased	Yes
Script	Latin
Script Extensions	Latin
Indic Syllabic Category	Other
ID Start	Yes
XID Start	Yes
ID Continue	Yes
XID Continue	Yes
Alphabetic	Yes
Vertical Orientation	Rotated
Grapheme Base	Yes
Grapheme Cluster Break	Other
Word Break	Alphabetic letter
Sentence Break	Lower