Donald Z. Osborn wrote:
According to data from R. Hartell (1993), the latin alpha is used in Fe'efe'e (a dialect of Bamileke) in Cameroon. See http://www.bisharat.net/A12N/CAM-table.htm (full ref. there; Hartell names her sources in her book). Not sure offhand of other uses, but I thought it was proposed for Latin transcription of Tamashek in Mali at one point (I'll try to check later). In any event it would seem easy to confuse the latin alpha with the standard "a," which would seem to either require exaggerated forms (of the alpha, to clarify the difference) or limit its usefulness in practice.
The Latin alpha is usually distinguished from the regular Latin lowercase a by making the latter a 'double-storey' form, whereas the alpha is a single-storey form. Of course, this means that the distinction cannot be adequately made in typefaces with a single-storey lowercase a, such as Futura.
John Hudson
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Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Currently reading: The Mass in slow motion, by Ronald Knox Hebrew manuscripts of the Middle Ages, by Colette Sirat
