Ą

Ą (minuscule: ą) is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Creek, Navajo, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Hocąk, Mescalero, Gwich'in, Tutchone, and Elfdalian alphabets. It is formed from the letter a and an ogonek and usually – except for modern Polish – denotes a nasal a sound.

Polish

In Polish and Kashubian ą is right after a in the alphabet but it never appears at the beginning of a word. Originally ą was a nasal a but in modern times the pronunciation of this vowel has shifted to a nasal o sound. It is most commonly pronounced as /ɔw̃/, /ɔn/, /ɔm/.

Unlike French but rather like Portuguese ão, nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, meaning that they are pronounced as an oral vowel + a nasal semivowel [ɔw̃], or a nasal vowel + a nasal semivowel. For the sake of simplicity, it is sometimes represented as /ɔ̃/.

Some examples,

• obowiązek ("duty", "obligation"), pronounced [ɔbɔˈvjɔw̃zɛk]
• robią ("They are making"), pronounced [ˈrɔbjɔw̃]
• wciąż ("still"), pronounced [ˈftɕɔw̃ʂ]

Before all stops and affricates, it is pronounced as an oral vowel + nasal consonant, with /ɔn/ appearing before most consonants, while /ɔm/ appears before p or b. For example,

• kąpać ("to bathe") is pronounced [ˈkɔmpatɕ]
• pająk ("spider") is pronounced [ˈpajɔŋk]
• bądź (imperative be), as in Bądź cierpliwy! ("Be patient!") is pronounced [ˈbɔɲtɕ]
• oglądając ("(by) watching") is pronounced [ɔɡlɔnˈdajɔnts]

Loss of all nasal quality is rare with ą, occurring only before Ł, thus, zajął [ˈzajɔw].

In dialects of some regions, ą in final position is also pronounced as /ɔm/, thus, robią is occasionally pronounced as [ˈrɔbjɔm].

History

Polish ą evolved from long nasal a of medieval Polish, which developed into a short nasal o in the modern language. This medieval vowel, along with its short counterpart, evolved in turn from the merged nasal *ę and *ǫ of Late Proto-Slavic.

Alternations

ą often alternates with ę, for example:

• tooth: ząb → zęby (teeth), thousand: tysiąc → tysięcy (thousands), snake: wąż → węże (snakes)
• husband in nominative: mąż → z mężem (with husband, in instrumental case)
• weight: ciężar → ciążyć (to weigh down, to be a burden), month: miesiąc → miesięczny (monthly), a judge: sędzia → sądzić (to judge, think)
• row in nominative: rząd → cztery razy z rzędu (four times in a row, in genitive case)

However, in words derived from rząd (government), the vowel does not change. Thus, government in nominative: rząd → rozporządzenie rządu (government's ordinance, in genitive case)

Audio examples

•  wąż  (snake)
•  mąż  (husband)

Lithuanian

In modern Lithuanian language ą is no longer nasal anymore and is pronounced as a long a. It is the second letter of Lithuanian alphabet called "a nosinė" - "nasal a".

This letter is most often found at the end of the noun, to construct an ending of accusative case as in aslą [a:sla:] - accusative of asla (ground, floor) - where both a and ą in aslą are pronounced equally as two long "a" sounds. Thus ą is used to distinguish between the transcription of accusative and the nominative cases of the noun asla.

Ą is also used when converting present tense verbs into participles (matąs - somebody who is seeing (lit. matyti) right now.

Nasal an/am forms have transitioned to pronouncing [a:] as in sąrašas (list) ~ san-grąža (turnover, return).

In some cases ą, ę and į (never ė) may be used in different forms interchangeably, as in tąsa (extension) - tęsia (extends) - tįsoti (to lie extended). Finally some verbs have it in the middle of the word, only in the present tense (bąla - is getting white, but not pabalo (has become white).^[1]

Ą can also be found at the beginning of several words (ąsotis [a:so:tis] (jug)).

The Americas

Difference between the correct placement of the ogonek in European languages (left) and Native American languages (right)

In some indigenous languages of the Americas, ą denotes a nasal a sound.

• Creek
• Navajo
• Western Apache
• Chiricahua
• Mescalero
• Gwich'in
• Tutchone

Elfdalian

Computing codes

See also

• Ę
• Ogonek
• Kashubian alphabet
• Lithuanian alphabet
• Polish phonology
• Polish alphabet
• Yus

References