At the beginning of a word, "alif" can be used to represent any of the short vowels, e.g. "ab", "ism", "urdū", "āp", "ādmi".
At the beginning of a word, "alif" can be used to represent any of the short vowels, e.g. "ab", "ism", "urdū". It is used to represent a long "ā" at the beginning of a word, e.g. "āp", "ādmi".