အ-

• Phonetic respelling: အ'
• IPA^(key): /ʔə/
• Romanization: MLCTS: a.- • ALA-LC: ʼa- • BGN/PCGN: ă • Okell: ă

အ- • (a.-)

1. used to make nouns from verbs, from adjectives or from other nouns

   အလုပ် ― a.lup ― work (thing to do)

   အက ― a.ka. ― a dance (thing that one dances)

2. used with a reduplicated noun to mean ‘various, diverse’

   အပြည်ပြည် ― a.pranyprany ― various countries

   အနိုင်နိုင်ငံ ― a.nuingnuingngam ― various states

3. sometimes used as meaningless prefix to disambiguate in sentences

   အထည် ― a.htany ― cloth, fabric (ထည် already means "cloth")

   အမြီး ― a.mri: ― tail (မြီး already means "tail")

Very frequently deleted when the noun to which it is prefixed is used in a compound. When used with a reduplicated polysyllabic noun, only the first syllable is reduplicated.

Borrowed from Pali a-

အ- • (a.-)

1. particle prefixed to words derived from Pali and Sanskrit to denote negation

• မ (ma.)