El (Л л; italics:
''Л'' ''л'') is a letter of the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
.
El commonly represents the
alveolar lateral approximant . In
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
it may be either
palatalized or slightly
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four d ...
; see
below.
Allography
In some
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
s the Cyrillic letter El has a grapheme which may be confused with the
Cyrillic letter Pe (Пп)
''.'' Note that Pe has a straight left leg, without the hook. An alternative form of El (Ʌ ʌ) is more common in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbian.
History
The Cyrillic letter El was derived from the
Greek letter lambda (Λ λ).
In the
Early Cyrillic alphabet
The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is a writing system that was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the late 9th century on the basis of the Greek alphabet for the Slavic people living ...
its name was (''ljudije''), meaning "people".
In the
Cyrillic numeral system
Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used ...
, Л had a value of 30.
Pronunciation
As used in the alphabets of various languages, El represents the following sounds:
*
alveolar lateral approximant , like the pronunciation of in "lip"
* palatalized
alveolar lateral approximant
*
velarized alveolar lateral approximant
The voiced alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the e ...
, like the pronunciation of in "bell" and "milk"
*
Labiovelar approximant , like the in "water"
*
voiced alveolar lateral fricative
The voiced alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is (sometimes ...
and its palatalized equivalent
The phoneme in Slavic languages has two realizations: hard (, , or , exact pronunciation varies) and soft (pronounced as ) – see
palatalization for details. Serbian and Macedonian orthographies use a separate letter
Љ for the soft – it looks as a
ligature
Ligature may refer to:
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure
** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry
* Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
of El with the
soft sign
The soft sign (Ь, ь, italics ) also known as the front yer, front jer, or er malak (lit. "small er") is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short (or "reduced") front vowel. As with its companion, the b ...
(Ь). In these languages, denotes only hard . Pronunciation of hard is sometimes given as , but it is always more velar than in
French or
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
.
Slavic languages except Serbian and Macedonian use another orthographic convention to distinguish between hard and soft , so can denote either variant depending on the subsequent letter.
The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language.
In addition, л was formerly used in
Chukchi to represent the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
but has since been replaced by ԓ.
Related letters and other similar characters
*Λ λ :
Greek letter Lambda
*Љ љ :
Cyrillic letter Lje
*Ӆ ӆ :
Cyrillic letter El with tail
*Ԓ ԓ :
Cyrillic letter El with hook
*Ԯ ԯ :
Cyrillic letter El with descender
*L l :
Latin letter L
*Ł ł :
Latin letter L with stroke
Computing codes
External links
*
*
References
{{Authority control