L

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
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

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]

History

Egyptian hieroglyph

Phoenician
lamedh

Etruscan L

Greek
Lambda

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.

The Roman numeral L represents the number 50.[3]

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]

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

𐤋 : Semitic letter Lamedh, from which the following symbols originally derive
- Λ λ : Greek letter Lambda, from which the following letters derive
  - Л л : Cyrillic letter El
  - Ⲗⲗ : Coptic letter Lamda
  - 𐌋 : Old Italic letter L, which is the ancestor of modern Latin L
    - ᛚ : Runic letter laguz, which probably derives from old Italic L
  - 𐌻 : Gothic letter laaz

Computing codes

Character information
Preview	L		l
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L		&NBSP; &NBSP; 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	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄


Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-123 Unified English Braille

gollark: Hm.

gollark: That's… probably not true though?

gollark: I suppose it is *simple*, if not really likely to be effective.

gollark: Of course. That would work perfectly.

gollark: *Is* it? We know SSRIs sometimes work, but brains are very complicated.

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).

External links

Media related to L at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of L at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of l at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of ℓ at Wiktionary

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[1] "L" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989) Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. (1993); "el", "ells", op. cit.

[2] "Ancient Hebrew Research Center". Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.

[Gordon-3] Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015. roman numerals.

[4] Unicode Consortium. "Letterlike Symbols". Unicode Code Charts. Retrieved 9 January 2019.

[5] Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF).

[6] Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF).

[7] Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (2001-09-20). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

[8] Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS" (PDF).

[9] Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

[10] 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).

[11] 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).

[12] 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).