Turned A is a letter of the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

 based upon the letter A

A

A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :...

. It is not, nor has it ever been, used in any natural language

Natural language

In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...

s as a letter in its own right.

Lowercase (in two story form) is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

 to identify the near-open central vowel. A variant, turned alpha

Latin alpha

Latin alpha or script a is a letter of the Latin alphabet, based on one lowercase form of a, or on the Greek lowercase alpha...

, , is also used in the IPA as the open back rounded vowel

Open back rounded vowel

The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The symbol is called turned script a, because it is a rotated version of script a, so-called because it...

.

It was used in the 18th century by Edward Lhuyd

Edward Lhuyd

Edward Lhuyd was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also known by the Latinized form of his name, Eduardus Luidius....

 and William Pryce as phonetic character for the Cornish language

Cornish language

Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

. In their books, both and have been used. It was used in the 19th century by Charles Sanders Peirce as a logical symbol for 'un-American' ("unamerican").

The symbol ∀ has the same shape of a capital turned A, sans serif. It is used in mathematical logic

Mathematical logic

Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...

 to denote universal quantification

Universal quantification

In predicate logic, universal quantification formalizes the notion that something is true for everything, or every relevant thing....

. In entertainment, the Japanese anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 Turn A Gundam

Turn A Gundam

is a 50 episode anime series that aired between 1999 and 2000 on Japan's FNN networks and on the anime satellite television network, Animax, which was created for the Gundam Big Bang 20th Anniversary celebration...

uses ∀ as part of both the title and the name of the titular mecha

WD-M01 Turn A Gundam

The WD-M01 Turn A Gundam is a fictional mecha from the calendar system in the anime Turn A Gundam. It is mainly piloted by the hero of the series, and acted as the symbol of the earth militia forces against the superior moonrace.- Design :...

. In traffic engineering

Traffic engineering (transportation)

For the engineering of communications and computer networks, see Teletraffic engineering.Traffic engineering is a branch of civil engineering that uses engineering techniques to achieve the safe and efficient movement of people and goods on roadways...

 it is used to represent flow, the number of units (vehicles) passing a point in a unit of time.

Encodings

is encoded in Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 at in the block Latin Extended-C, though very few fonts support it as of 2008, and ɐ is encoded in Unicode at in the block IPA Extensions

IPA Extensions unicode block

IPA Extensions is a block of the Unicode standard that contains full size letters used in the International Phonetic Alphabet . Both modern and historical characters are included, as well as former and proposed IPA signs and non-IPA phonetic letters...

.
The similar turned alphas are at , and at .

The mathematical symbol is encoded at , in the block Mathematical operators, and only in a sans-serif form.

The Symbol font

Symbol (typeface)

Symbol is one of the four standard fonts available on all PostScript-based printers, starting with Apple's original LaserWriter . It contains a complete unaccented Greek alphabet and a selection of commonly used mathematical symbols...

includes at position 34 (which would produce the quotation mark in ASCII and Unicode).