L
L is the twelfth letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el (pronounced /ˈɛl/), plural els.[1]
| L | |
|---|---|
| L l | |
| (See below) | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabetic and Logographic |
| Language of origin | Latin language |
| Phonetic usage | [l] [ɫ] [ɮ] [ɬ] [ʎ] [ɭ] /ɛl/ |
| Unicode value | U+004C, U+006C |
| Alphabetical position | 12 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | ~-700 to present |
| Descendants | • ɮ • Ꝇ ꝇ • ℒ ℓ • £ • ₤ • ᛚ • ꬸ • L |
| Sisters | Л Љ Ӆ Ԯ ל ل ل ܠ ࠋ 𐡋 ለ ℓ |
| Variations | (See below) |
| Other | |
| Other letters commonly used with | l(x), lj, ll, ly |
|
History
| Egyptian hieroglyph | Phoenician lamedh |
Etruscan L | Greek Lambda | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
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Lamedh may have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle prod. Some have suggested a shepherd's staff.[2]
Use in writing systems
Phonetic and phonemic transcription
In phonetic and phonemic transcription, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨l⟩ to represent the lateral alveolar approximant.
English
In English orthography, ⟨l⟩ usually represents the phoneme /l/, which can have several sound values, depending on the speaker's accent, and whether it occurs before or after a vowel. The alveolar lateral approximant (the sound represented in IPA by lowercase [l]) occurs before a vowel, as in lip or blend, while the velarized alveolar lateral approximant (IPA [ɫ]) occurs in bell and milk. This velarization does not occur in many European languages that use ⟨l⟩; it is also a factor making the pronunciation of ⟨l⟩ difficult for users of languages that lack ⟨l⟩ or have different values for it, such as Japanese or some southern dialects of Chinese. A medical condition or speech impediment restricting the pronunciation of ⟨l⟩ is known as lambdacism.
In English orthography, ⟨l⟩ is often silent in such words as walk or could (though its presence can modify the preceding vowel letter's sound), and it is usually silent in such words as palm and psalm; however, there is some regional variation.
Other languages
⟨l⟩ usually represents the sound [l] or some other lateral consonant.
Common digraphs include ⟨ll⟩, which has a value identical to ⟨l⟩ in English, but has the separate value voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (IPA [ɬ]) in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial position. In Spanish, ⟨ll⟩ represents [ʎ], [j], [ʝ], [ɟʝ], or [ʃ], depending on dialect.
A palatal lateral approximant or palatal ⟨l⟩ (IPA [ʎ]) occurs in many languages, and is represented by ⟨gli⟩ in Italian, ⟨ll⟩ in Spanish and Catalan, ⟨lh⟩ in Portuguese, and ⟨ļ⟩ in Latvian.
In Washo, lower-case ⟨l⟩ represents a typical el sound, while upper-case ⟨L⟩ represents a voiceless el sound, a bit like double ⟨ll⟩ in Welsh.
Other uses
The capital letter L is used as the currency sign for the Albanian lek and the Honduran lempira. It was often used, especially in handwriting, as the currency sign for the Italian lira. It is also infrequently used as a substitute for the pound sign (£), which is based on it.
Forms and variants
In some sans-serif fonts (i.e., typefaces), the lowercase letter ell ⟨l⟩ may be difficult to distinguish from the uppercase letter eye ⟨I⟩ or the digit one ⟨1⟩. To avoid such confusion, some newer fonts have a finial, a curve to the right at the bottom of the lowercase letter ell.
Another means of reducing such confusion, increasingly common on European road signs and in advertisements, uses a cursive, handwriting-style lowercase letter ell ⟨ℓ⟩. A special letter-like symbol ⟨ℓ⟩ is sometimes used for this purpose in mathematics and elsewhere. In Unicode, this symbol is U+2113 ℓ SCRIPT SMALL L with HTML numeric character reference ℓ. In Japan, for example, this is the symbol for the liter. However, the International System of Units recommends using Unicode symbols U+006C l LOWERCASE L or U+004C L UPPERCASE L for the liter.[4]
Another solution, sometimes seen in Web typography, uses a serif font for the lowercase letter ell, such as ⟨l⟩, in otherwise sans-serif text.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
- IPA-specific symbols related to L: ʟ ɫ ɬ ɭ ɺ ɮ ꞎ ˡ
- Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to L:[5] U+1D0C ᴌ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL L WITH STROKE and U+1D38 ᴸ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL L
- ₗ : Subscript small l was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902[6]
- ȴ : L with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics[7]
- Ꞁ ꞁ : Turned L was used by William Pryce to designate the Welsh voiced lateral spirant [ɬ][8] It is also used in the Romic alphabet. In Unicode, these are U+A780 Ꞁ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER TURNED L, and U+A781 ꞁ LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED L.
- Other variations are used for phonetic transcription:[9] ᶅ ᶩ ᶪ ᶫ
- Ꝇ ꝇ : Broken L was used in some medieval Nordic manuscripts[10]
- Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to R:[11]
- U+AB37 ꬷ LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH INVERTED LAZY S
- U+AB38 ꬸ LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH DOUBLE MIDDLE TILDE
- U+AB39 ꬹ LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH MIDDLE RING
- U+AB5D ꭝ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL L WITH INVERTED LAZY S
- U+AB5E ꭞ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL L WITH MIDDLE TILDE
- L with diacritics: Ĺ ĺ Ł ł Ľ ľ Ḹ ḹ L̃ l̃ Ļ ļ Ŀ ŀ Ḷ ḷ Ḻ ḻ Ḽ ḽ Ƚ ƚ Ⱡ ⱡ
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
- ℒ ℓ : Script letter L (capital and lowercase, respectively)
- £ : pound sign
- ₤ : lira sign
- Ꝉ ꝉ : Forms of L were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[12]
Computing codes
| Preview | L | l | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L |     LATIN SMALL LETTER L | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 76 | U+004C | 108 | U+006C |
| UTF-8 | 76 | 4C | 108 | 6C |
| Numeric character reference | L | L | l | l |
| EBCDIC family | 211 | D3 | 147 | 93 |
| ASCII 1 | 76 | 4C | 108 | 6C |
- 1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.
Other representations
| NATO phonetic | Morse code |
| Lima |
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| Signal flag | Flag semaphore | American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) | Braille dots-123 Unified English Braille |
References
- "L" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989) Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. (1993); "el", "ells", op. cit.
- "Ancient Hebrew Research Center". Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
- Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
roman numerals.
- Unicode Consortium. "Letterlike Symbols". Unicode Code Charts. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
- Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).
- Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF).
- Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (2001-09-20). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF).
- Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF).
- Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF).
