L
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 /ˈɛl/), plural els.[1]
| L | |
|---|---|
| L l | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | Alphabetic and Logographic |
| Language of origin | Latin language |
| Phonetic usage | [l] [ɫ] [ɮ] [ɬ] [ʎ] [ɭ] [w] [ʟ] /ɛl/ |
| Unicode codepoint | U+004C, U+006C |
| Alphabetical position | 12 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | ~-700 to present |
| Descendants | • ɮ • Ꝇ ꝇ • ℒ ℓ • £ • Ł • ᛚ • ꬸ • L |
| Sisters | Л Љ Ӆ Ԯ ל ل ܠ ⵍ ࠋ 𐡋 ለ ℓ |
| Other | |
| Other letters commonly used with | l(x), lj, ll, ly |
| Writing direction | Left-to-Right |
 |
| ISO basic Latin alphabet |
|---|
| AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz |
History
| Egyptian hieroglyph | Phoenician lamedh |
Etruscan L | Greek Lambda |
Latin L | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
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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 value), and it is usually silent in such words as palm and psalm; however, there is some regional variation. L is the eleventh most frequently used letter in the English language.
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 [l] sound, while upper-case ⟨L⟩ represents a voiceless [l̥] 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. Historically, it was commonly used as a currency sign for the British pound sterling (to abbreviate the Latin libra, a pound, see £sd); in modern usage it has been overtaken by the pound sign (£), which is based on the blackletter form of the letter. In running text, its lower-case form (usually italicised), l, was more often seen.[lower-alpha 1]
The Roman numeral L represents the number 50.[4]
In the International system of units, the liter (or litre) is abbreviated using an upper-case (or a lower-case) L.[5]
In watchmaking, the ligne (a traditional French measure of length still used in that industry) is abbreviated using an upper-case L.[6]
In chemistry, L is used as a symbol for the Avogadro constant.[7]
Forms and variants
In most sans-serif typefaces, the lowercase letter ell ⟨l⟩, written l, may be difficult to distinguish from the uppercase letter "eye" ⟨I⟩; in some serif typefaces, the glyph l may be confused with the glyph 1, the digit one. To avoid such confusion, some newer computer fonts (such as Trebuchet MS) have a finial, a curve to the right at the bottom of the lowercase letter ell.
Another means of reducing such confusion – used in mathematics, European road signs and in advertisements – is to use symbol ℓ, which is a cursive, handwriting-style lowercase form of the letter "ell". In Unicode, this symbol is U+2113 ℓ SCRIPT SMALL L from the "letter-like symbols" block. In Japan, for example, this is the symbol for the liter. However, the International Committee for Weights and Measures recommends using L or l for the liter.[5] (without specifying a typeface).
Another solution, sometimes seen in Web typography, uses a serif font for the lowercase letter ell, such as l, in otherwise sans-serif text.
In the blackletter type used in England until the seventeenth century,[8][lower-alpha 2] the letter L is rendered as .
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
- IPA-specific symbols related to L: ʟ ɫ ɬ ɭ ɺ ɮ ꞎ ˡ
- IPA superscript symbols related to L:[9] 𐞛 𐞜
- Extensions to IPA for disordered speech (extIPA):[10][11] 𝼄 𐞝
- Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to L:[12] 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[13]
- ȴ : L with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics[14]
- Ꞁ ꞁ : Turned L was used by William Pryce to designate the Welsh voiced lateral spirant [ɬ][15] The lower case 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.
- 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.[16]
- Other variations are used for phonetic transcription: ᶅ[17] ᶩ[17] ᶪ[17] ᶫ[17] 𝼑[18][11] 𝼓[18][11]
- Ꝇ ꝇ : Broken L was used in some medieval Nordic manuscripts[19]
- Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to L:[20]
- 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
- Ꝉ ꝉ : Forms of L were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[21]
- Ł or ł, "L with stroke" used in Polish and many neighbouring languages
Computing codes
| Preview | L | l | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L | LATIN SMALL LETTER L | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | 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
Notes
- For example, see the Diary of Samuel Pepys for 31 December 1661: " I suppose myself to be worth about 500l. clear in the world, ..."[3]
- Blackletter persisted in Germany until the early 1940s. See Antiqua–Fraktur dispute
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.
- Pepys, Samuel (31 December 2004). "Tuesday 31 December 1661". The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Archived from the original on 24 November 2021.
- Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
roman numerals.
- "The International System of Units (SI) | The SI brochure, 9th edition, 2019" (PDF). December 2022. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
The litre, and the symbol lower-case l, were adopted by the CIPM in 1879 (PV, 1879, 41). The alternative symbol, capital L, was adopted by the 16th CGPM (1979, Resolution 6; CR, 101 and Metrologia, 1980, 16, 56-57) in order to avoid the risk of confusion between the letter l (el) and the numeral 1 (one).
- "Foire aux questions sur l'horlogerie et les montres" [Frequently asked questions about watches and clocks]. horlogerie-suisse.com (in French). Archived from the original on 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2022-01-18.
Par tradition ancestrale, les horlogers n'utilisent pas le millimètre mais la ligne pour désigner le diamètre d'encageage d'un mouvement.
[By ancestral tradition, watchmakers do not use the millimeter but the line to designate the casing diameter of a movement] - H. P. Lehmann, X. Fuentes-Arderiu, and L. F. Bertello (1996): "Glossary of terms in quantities and units in Clinical Chemistry (IUPAC-IFCC Recommendations 1996)"; page 963, item "Avogadro constant". Pure and Applied Chemistry, volume 68, issue 4, pages 957–1000. doi:10.1351/pac199668040957
- Dowding, Geoffrey (1962). An introduction to the history of printing types; an illustrated summary of main stages in the development of type design from 1440 up to the present day: an aid to type face identification. Clerkenwell [London]: Wace. p. 5.
- Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
- Miller, Kirk; Ball, Martin (2020-07-11). "L2/20-116R: Expansion of the extIPA and VoQS" (PDF).
- Anderson, Deborah (2020-12-07). "L2/21-021: Reference doc numbers for L2/20-266R "Consolidated code chart of proposed phonetic characters" and IPA etc. code point and name changes" (PDF).
- 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).
- Miller, Kirk; Rees, Neil (2021-07-16). "L2/21-156: Unicode request for legacy Malayalam" (PDF).
- Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- Miller, Kirk (2020-07-11). "L2/20-125R: Unicode request for expected IPA retroflex letters and similar letters with hooks" (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).
