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An alpha privative or, rarely, Ngram Viewer privative a (from Latin alpha prīvātīvum, from Ancient Greek α στερητικόν) is the prefix a- or an- (before vowels) that is used in Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit and Greek language and in words borrowed therefrom to express negation or absence, for example the English words of Greek origin , , and , as well as the English word of Sanskrit origin Ahimsa ( ahinsa).
It is derived from a Proto-Indo-European syllabic nasal * , the zero ablaut grade of the negation *, i.e. /n/ used as a vowel. For this reason, it usually appears as an- before vowels (e.g. illiteracy, anesthesia, an-archy). It shares the same root with the Greek prefix nē- or ne-, in Greek νη- or νε-, that is also privative (e.g. nepenthe]]).
It is not to be confused with, among other things, an copulative a (e.g. ) or the prefix an- (i.e. the preposition aná with or elision of its final vowel before a following vowel; e.g. anode]]).
In North Germanic languages, the - n- has disappeared and Old Norse has ú- (e.g. ú-dáins-akr), Danish language and Norwegian have u-, whereas Swedish language uses o- (pronounced u), and Icelandic and Faroese language use the related ó-]].
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