The double ⟨aa⟩ sequence does not occur in native English words, but is found in some words derived from foreign languages such as Aaron and aardvark. a schwa, in many unstressed syllables, as in about, comma, solar.the shorter rounded vowel (not present in General American) in was and what.the modified form of the above sound that occurs before ⟨r⟩, as in square and Mary.the diphthong /eɪ/ as in ace and major (usually when ⟨a⟩ is followed by one, or occasionally two, consonants and then another vowel letter) – this results from Middle English lengthening followed by the Great Vowel Shift.
In turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended. The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it from a true alphabet).