L Opinion Publique - Magazine Illustre - 5 Fevrier 1870

L, or l, is the twelfth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''el'' (pronounced ), plural ''els''.

History

Lamedh may have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle prod. Some have suggested a shepherd's staff.

Use in writing systems

Phonetic and phonemic transcription

In phonetic and phonemic transcription, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses to represent the lateral alveolar approximant.

English

In English orthography, usually represents the phoneme , 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 ) occurs before a vowel, as in ''lip'' or ''blend'', while the velarized alveolar lateral approximant (IPA ) occurs in ''bell'' and ''milk''. This velarization does not occur in many European languages that use ; it is also a factor making the pronunciation of difficult for users of languages that lack 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 is known as lambdacism.

In English orthography, is often silent in such words as ''walk'' or ''could'' (though its presence can modify the preceding vowel letter's value), and it is usually silent in such words as ''palm'' and ''psalm''; however, there is some regional variation.

Other languages

usually represents the sound or some other lateral consonant.

Common digraphs include , which has a value identical to in English, but has the separate value voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (IPA ) in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial position. In Spanish, represents � � �ʝ or � depending on dialect.

A palatal lateral approximant or palatal (IPA ) occurs in many languages, and is represented by in Italian, in Spanish and Catalan, in Portuguese, and in Latvian.

In Washo, lower-case represents a typical sound, while upper-case represents a voiceless ̥sound, a bit like double 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.

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.

Forms and variants

In some sans-serif fonts (i.e., typefaces), the lowercase letter ''ell'' may be difficult to distinguish from the uppercase letter ''eye'' or the digit ''one'' . 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'' . A special letter-like symbol is sometimes used for this purpose in mathematics and elsewhere. In Unicode, this symbol is 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 or for the liter.

Another solution, sometimes seen in Web typography, uses a serif font for the lowercase letter ''ell'', such as , in otherwise sans-serif text.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

*IPA-specific symbols related to L:
* IPA superscript symbols related to L: 𐞛 𐞜
* Extensions to IPA for disordered speech (extIPA): 𝼄 𐞝
* Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to L: and
*ₗ : Subscript small l was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902
* ȴ : L with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics
*Ꞁ ꞁ : Turned L was used by William Pryce to designate the Welsh voiced lateral spirant �It is also used in the Romic alphabet. In Unicode, these are , and .
*𝼦 : Small letter l with mid-height left hook was used by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the early 20th century for romanization of the Malayalam language.
*Other variations are used for phonetic transcription: ᶅ ᶩ ᶪ ᶫ 𝼑 𝼓
*Ꝇ ꝇ : Broken L was used in some medieval Nordic manuscripts
*Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to R:
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*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

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

* : 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

: ¹

Other representations

References

External links

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{{Latin script, L}

ISO basic Latin letters