Lj (titlecase; LJ in upper case; lj in
lower case
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...
) is a letter present in some
Slavic language
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 Ear ...
s, such as the Latin version of
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
and in romanised
Macedonian, where it represents a
palatal lateral approximant
The voiced palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbo ...
. For example, the word ' is pronounced . Most languages containing the letter in the alphabet are phonemic, which means that every symbol represents one sound, and is always pronounced the same way. In this case, joining the letters ''
L'' and ''
J'' creates a new letter or a sound. The digraph is treated as a single letter, and therefore it has its own place in the
alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
, takes up only one space in crossword puzzles and is written in line in vertical text. However, it is not found on standard computer keyboards. Like its
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
counterpart, the
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Easte ...
has a specific symbol for the same sound:
Љ.
In sentence case, only ''L'' is capitalized.
The same sound appears in Italian spelled with , in some variants of Spanish and Catalan as , in Portuguese as , in
Breton , in some Hungarian dialects as and in
Latvian as . In
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
and
Slovak, it is often transcribed as (it is used more frequently on the latter language).
Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; ; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origin
He was born in Krapina ( ...
first proposed this digraph in 1835.
Lj is a precomposed character with 3 variants:
*
*
*
See also
*
Љ, the Cyrillic version of Lj
*
Gaj's Latin alphabet
Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sr-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sr-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all ...
References
External links
Audio samplesof the letter ''LJ''
{{Latin script
Latin-script digraphs
Serbo-Croatian language