Alpha

Alpha (uppercase ?, lowercase ?; Ancient Greek: ????, álpha, modern pronunciation álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician and Hebrew letter aleph - an ox or leader. Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin A and the Cyrillic letter ?. In English, the noun "alpha" is used as a synonym for "beginning", or "first" (in a series), reflecting its Greek roots.