L

L, or l, is the twelfth letter of the modern English alphabet and

L
the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el
(pronounced /ˈɛl/), plural els.[1]

Ll
Contents (See below)

History
Use in writing systems
Phonetic and phonemic transcription
English
Other languages
Other uses
Forms and variants
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet Usage
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
Writing system Latin script
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
Type Alphabetic and
Computing codes
Logographic
Other representations
Language of Latin language
References origin
External links Phonetic usage [l]

[ɫ]

[ɮ]

History [ɬ]

[ʎ]

Phoenician
Greek
Latin

Egyptian hieroglyph Etruscan L [ɭ]

lamedh Lambda L
[w]

/ɛl/
Unicode U+004C,
codepoint U+006C
Lamedh may have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle
prod. Some have suggested a shepherd's staff.[2] Alphabetical 12
position

Use in writing systems History

Development

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/, Λλ

which can have several sound values, depending on the speaker's
𐌋
accent, and whether it occurs before or after a vowel. The alveolar
lateral approximant (the sound represented in IPA by lowercase Ll
[l]) occurs before a vowel, as in lip or blend, while the velarized
alveolar lateral approximant (IPA [ɫ]) occurs in bell and milk. This Time period ~-700 to
velarization does not occur in many European languages that use present
⟨l⟩; it is also a factor making the pronunciation of ⟨l⟩ difficult for
Descendants  • ɮ

users of languages that lack ⟨l⟩ or have different values for it, such
 • Ꝇ ꝇ

as Japanese or some southern dialects of Chinese. A medical

condition or speech impediment restricting the pronunciation of  • ℒ ℓ

⟨l⟩ is known as lambdacism.  • £

 • ₤

In English orthography, ⟨l⟩ is often silent in such words as walk  • ᛚ

or could (though its presence can modify the preceding vowel  • ꬸ

letter's value), and it is usually silent in such words as palm and  • L

psalm; however, there is some regional variation.
Sisters Л

Other languages Ӆ

⟨l⟩ usually represents the sound [l] or some other lateral ‫

ל‬
consonant.
‫
ل‬
Common digraphs include ⟨ll⟩, which has a value identical to ⟨l⟩ in ‫
ܠ‬
English, but has the separate value voiceless alveolar lateral ⵍ

fricative (IPA [ɬ]) in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial ࠋ

position. In Spanish, ⟨ll⟩ represents [ʎ], [j], [ʝ], [ɟʝ], or [ʃ], 𐡋

depending on dialect. ለ

ℓ
A palatal lateral approximant or palatal ⟨l⟩ (IPA [ʎ]) occurs in
many languages, and is represented by ⟨gli⟩ in Italian, ⟨ll⟩ in Variations (See below)
Spanish and Catalan, ⟨lh⟩ in Portuguese, and ⟨ļ⟩ in Latvian. Other
Other letters l(x), lj, ll, ly
In Washo, lower-case ⟨l⟩ represents a typical [l] sound, while
upper-case ⟨L⟩ represents a voiceless [l̥ ] sound, a bit like double commonly used
⟨ll⟩ in Welsh. with

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]

In recent years, the letters L and W have become an internet meme, respectively standing for loss and
win. L, in particular, is commonly used in popular culture, often referring to the slang definition of
ownership. Take the L, respectively, means to accept this particular defeat.[4]

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.[5]

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:[6] 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[7]
ȴ : L with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics[8]
Ꞁ ꞁ : Turned L was used by William Pryce to designate the Welsh voiced lateral spirant [ɬ][9] 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:[10] ᶅ ᶩ ᶪ ᶫ
Ꝇ ꝇ : Broken L was used in some medieval Nordic manuscripts[11]
Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to R:[12]

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[13]

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 might derive from old Italic L
𐌻 : Gothic letter laaz

Computing codes
Character information

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
  ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ 
 American Braille dots-
British manual
Signal flag manual 123

Flag semaphore alphabet (BSL

alphabet (ASL Unified
fingerspelling)
fingerspelling) English Braille

References
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" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150103100530/http://www.anc
ient-hebrew.org/3_lam.html). Archived from the original (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/3_lam.htm
l) on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
3. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (https://archive.org/details/illu
stratedintro0000gord). University of California Press. pp. 44 (https://archive.org/details/illustratedin
tro0000gord/page/44). ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015. "roman numerals."
4. "L and W" (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/l-and-w).
5. Unicode Consortium. "Letterlike Symbols" (https://www.unicode.org/charts/beta/nameslist/n_2100.
html). Unicode Code Charts. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
6. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf) (PDF).
7. Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode
additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2009/09028-
n3571-upa-additions.pdf) (PDF).
8. Cook, Richard; Everson, Michael (2001-09-20). "L2/01-347: Proposal to add six phonetic
characters to the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01347-n2366r.pdf) (PDF).
9. Everson, Michael (2006-08-06). "L2/06-266: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to
the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06266-n3122-insular.pdf) (PDF).
10. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the
UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf) (PDF).
11. 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" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06027-n3027-medi
eval.pdf) (PDF).
12. 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" (https://www.unic
ode.org/L2/L2011/11202-n4081-teuthonista.pdf) (PDF).
13. 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" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06027-n3027-medi
eval.pdf) (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

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This page was last edited on 18 November 2021, at 21:58 (UTC).

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