Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 October 21

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October 21

"A" as a letter and article

Why is that when A is a letter in the alphabet it's pronounced as [eɪ] but when it's an indefinite article, it's pronounced differently, as [ɔ:]? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 07:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

In the vast majority of cases, "a" the indefinite article is pronounced as a schwa vowel... AnonMoos (talk) 07:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

All the names of letters are pronounced differently from the letters themselves.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

When pronounced emphatically, as in "This is not the solution; it is just a solution", the indefinite article in English is pronounced /eɪ/, just like the name of the letter. Each of the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet has a variety of pronunciations when used in English words, except (I think) for the ⟨q⟩, which is always /k/.  --Lambiam 11:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

In general, in many (but not every) dialect of English, emphasis is done by changing the schwa to the un-reduced form of the vowel the schwa is standing in for. "THEE" vs. "thuh" for the word "the" for example also works. You can read more about this at Stress and vowel reduction in English. --Jayron32 11:51, 21 October 2020 (UTC)