U+1EA1 "ạ" Latin Small Letter A with Dot Below Unicode Character
U+1EA1 "ạ" Latin Small Letter A with Dot Below is a precomposed character used primarily in the Vietnamese alphabet, where the dot below indicates the nặng tone, one of the six distinct tones in the Vietnamese language. This character is formed by combining the base vowel "a" with a diacritical mark placed beneath it, and it is represented in Unicode as a single code point to ensure proper rendering and text processing in digital environments. When appearing in words like "cạnh" meaning side or edge, the "ạ" carries a low, glottalized falling tone that is essential for correct pronunciation and semantic meaning in Vietnamese. The inclusion of this character in Unicode supports the accurate representation of Vietnamese text in computing systems worldwide.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+1EA1 |
| Version Added | 1.1 |
| Name | Latin Small Letter A with Dot Below |
| Block | Latin Extended Additional |
| General Category | Lowercase Letter |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Left To Right |
| Decomposition Type | Canonical |
| Decomposition Mapping | "a" U+0061 Latin Small Letter A "̣" U+0323 Combining Dot Below |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | ạ |
| HTML Hex Encoding | ạ |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xE1 0xBA 0xA1 |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x1EA1 |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x00001EA1 |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u1ea1 |
Unicode Properties
| NFC Quick Check | Yes |
| NFKC Quick Check | Yes |
| Numeric Type | None |
| Numeric Value | NaN |
| Line Break | Alphabetic |
| Lowercase | Yes |
| Simple Uppercase Code Point | "Ạ" U+1EA0 Latin Capital Letter A with Dot Below |
| Simple Titlecase Code Point | "Ạ" U+1EA0 Latin Capital Letter A with Dot Below |
| Uppercase Code Point | "Ạ" U+1EA0 Latin Capital Letter A with Dot Below |
| Titlecase Code Point | "Ạ" U+1EA0 Latin Capital Letter A with Dot Below |
| 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 |