L | |
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L l | |
Usage | |
Writing system | Latin script |
Type | Alphabetic and logographic |
Language of origin | Latin language |
Sound values | |
In Unicode | U+004C, U+006C |
Alphabetical position | 12 |
History | |
Development | |
Time period | ~−700 to present |
Descendants | |
Sisters | |
Other | |
Associated graphs | l(x), lj, ll, ly |
Writing direction | Left-to-right |
ISO basic Latin alphabet |
---|
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz |
L, or l, is the twelfth letter of 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/ EL), plural els. [1]
Egyptian hieroglyph | Phoenician lamedh | Western Greek Lambda | Etruscan L | Latin L | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lamedh may have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle prod. Some have suggested that it represents a shepherd's staff. [2]
In most sans-serif typefaces, the lowercase letter ell⟨l⟩, written as the glyph l, may be difficult to distinguish from the uppercase letter "eye" ⟨ I ⟩ (written as the glyph 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. Other style variants are provided in script typefaces and display typefaces. All these variants of the letter are encoded in Unicode as U+004CLLATIN CAPITAL LETTER L or U+006ClLATIN SMALL LETTER L, allowing presentation to be chosen according to each context. For specialist mathematical and scientific use, there are a number of dedicated codepoints in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block.
Another means of reducing such confusion is to use symbol ℓ, which is a cursive, handwriting-style lowercase form of the letter "ell". In Japan and Korea, for example, this is the symbol for the liter. (The International Committee for Weights and Measures recommends using L or l for the liter, [3] without specifying a typeface.) In Unicode, the cursive form is encoded as U+2113ℓSCRIPT SMALL L from the "letter-like symbols" block. Unicode encodes an explicit symbol as U+1D4C1𝓁MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT SMALL L. [4] The TeX syntax <math>\ell</math> renders it as . In mathematical formulas, an italic form (ℓ) of the script ℓ is the norm.
Orthography | Phonemes |
---|---|
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) | /l/ |
English | /l/, silent |
French | /l/, silent |
German | /l/ |
Portuguese | /l/ |
Spanish | /l/ |
Turkish | /l/, /ɫ/ |
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. In Received Pronunciation, 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.
⟨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/ ([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 Turkish, ⟨l⟩ generally represents /l/, but represents /ɫ/ before ⟨a⟩, ⟨ı⟩, ⟨o⟩, or ⟨u⟩.
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.
The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨l⟩ to represent the voiced alveolar lateral approximant and a small cap ⟨ʟ⟩ to represent the voiced velar lateral approximant.
The Latin letters ⟨L⟩ and ⟨l⟩ have Unicode encodings U+004CLLATIN CAPITAL LETTER L and U+006ClLATIN SMALL LETTER L. These are the same code points as those used in ASCII and ISO 8859. There are also precomposed character encodings for ⟨L⟩ and ⟨l⟩ with diacritics, for most of those listed above; the remainder are produced using combining diacritics.
Variant forms of the letter have unique code points for specialist use: the alphanumeric symbols set in mathematics and science, and halfwidth and fullwidth forms for legacy CJK font compatibility.
D, or d, is the fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is dee, plural dees.
E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is e ; plural es, Es or E's.
G, or g, is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is gee, plural gees.
M, or m, is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em, plural ems.
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is en, plural ens.
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is o, plural oes.
P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pee, plural pees.
R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ar, plural ars, or in Ireland or.
S, or for lowercase, s, is the nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and other latin alphabets worldwide. Its name in English is ess, plural esses.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is tee, plural tees.
EzhEZH, also called the "tailed z", is a letter, notable for its use in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent the voiced postalveolar fricative consonant. For example, the pronunciation of "si" in vision and precision, or the ⟨s⟩ in treasure. See also the letter ⟨Ž⟩ as used in many Slavic languages, the letter ⟨Ż⟩ as used in Kashubian, the Persian alphabet letter ⟨ژ⟩, the Cyrillic letter ⟨Ж⟩, the Devanagari letter (झ़) and the Esperanto letter ⟨Ĵ⟩.
Eng or engma is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a voiced velar nasal in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Esh is a character used in phonology to represent the voiceless postalveolar fricative.
Ou is a ligature of the Greek letters ο and υ which was frequently used in Byzantine manuscripts. This omicron-upsilon ligature is still seen today on icon artwork in Greek Orthodox churches, and sometimes in graffiti or other forms of informal or decorative writing.
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist; it was somewhat modified in the 1970s.
Latin alpha, script a, or single-story a is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on one lowercase form of a, or on the Greek lowercase alpha (α).
J, or j, is the tenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is jay, with a now-uncommon variant jy.
Turned A is a letter and symbol based upon the letter A.
I, or i, is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is i, plural ies.
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).
roman numerals.
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]