Ll/ll is a digraph that occurs in several languages.
In English, ⟨ll⟩ often represents the same sound as single ⟨l⟩: /l/. The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or that the "l" sound is to be extended longer than a single ⟨l.⟩ would provide (etymologically, in latinisms coming from a gemination). It is worth noting that different English language traditions use ⟨l⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ in different words: for example the past tense form of "travel" is spelt "travelled" in British English but "traveled" in American English. See also: American and British English spelling differences#Doubled consonants.
In Welsh, ⟨ll⟩ stands for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative sound (IPA: [ɬ]). This sound is very common in place names in Wales because it occurs in the word llan , for example, Llanelli , where the ⟨ll⟩ appears twice, or Llanfairpwllgwyngyll , where (in the long version of the name) the ⟨ll⟩ appears five times – with two instances of llan.
In Welsh, ⟨ll⟩ is a separate digraph letter [2] from ⟨l⟩ (e.g., lwc sorts before llaw). In modern Welsh this, and other digraph letters, are written with two symbols but count as one letter. In Middle Welsh it was written with a tied ligature; this ligature is included in the Latin Extended Additional Unicode block as U+1EFAỺLATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL and U+1EFBỻLATIN SMALL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL. [3] This ligature is seldom used in Modern Welsh, but equivalent ligatures may be included in modern fonts, for example the three fonts commissioned by the Welsh Government in 2020. [4]
In the standard Asturian orthography published by the Academy of the Asturian Language in 1981, ⟨ll⟩ represents the phoneme /ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant). A variation of this digraph, ⟨ḷḷ⟩, is used to represent a set of dialectal phonemes used in Western Asturian that correspond to /ʎ/ in other dialects: [ɖ] (voiced retroflex plosive), [ɖʐ] (voiced retroflex affricate), [ʈʂ] (voiceless retroflex affricate) or [t͡s] (voiceless alveolar affricate).
In Catalan, ⟨ll⟩ represents the phoneme /ʎ/, as in llengua (language, tongue), enllaç (linkage, connection), or coltell (knife).
In order to not confuse ⟨ll⟩/ʎ/ with a geminated ⟨l⟩/ll/, Catalan uses a middle dot (interpunct or punt volat in Catalan) in between ⟨ŀl⟩. For example exceŀlent ("excellent"). The first character in the digraph, ⟨Ŀ⟩ and ⟨ŀ⟩, is included in the Latin Extended-A Unicode block at U+013F (uppercase) and U+0140 (lowercase) respectively.
In Catalan typography, ⟨l·l⟩ is intended to fill two spaces, not three, [5] so the interpunct is placed in the narrow space between the two ⟨l⟩s: ⟨ĿL⟩ and ⟨ŀl⟩. However, it is common to write ⟨L·L⟩ and ⟨l·l⟩, occupying three spaces. ⟨L.L⟩ and ⟨l.l⟩, although sometimes seen, are incorrect.
In official Galician spelling the ⟨ll⟩ combination stands for the phoneme /ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant, a palatal counterpart of /l/).
In Spanish, ⟨ll⟩ was considered from 1754 to 2010 the fourteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet because of its representation of a palatal lateral articulation consonant phoneme (as defined by the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language). [6]
While Philippine languages like Tagalog and Ilocano write ⟨ly⟩ or ⟨li⟩ when spelling Spanish loanwords, ⟨ll⟩ still survives in proper nouns. However, the pronunciation of ⟨ll⟩ is simply [lj] rather than [ʎ]. Hence the surnames Llamzon, Llamas, Padilla, Bellen, Basallote and Villanueva are respectively pronounced [ljɐmˈzon]/[ljɐmˈson], [ˈljɐmas], [pɐˈdɪːlja], [bɪːlˈjɛːn], [bɐsɐlˈjotɛ] and [ˌbɪːljanuˈwɛːba]/[ˌvɪːljanuˈwɛːva].
Furthermore, in Ilocano ⟨ll⟩ represents a geminate alveolar lateral approximant /lː/, like in Italian.
In Albanian, ⟨L⟩ stands for the sound /l/, while ⟨Ll⟩ is pronounced as the velarized sound /ɫ/.
In Icelandic, the ⟨ll⟩ can represent [tɬ] (similar to a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate), [8] [ɬ] or [l] depending on which letters surround it. [tɬ] appears in fullur ("full", masculine), [ɬ] appears in fullt ("full", neuter), and [l] appears in fulls ("full", neuter genitive). The geographical name Eyjafjallajökull includes the [tɬ] sound twice.
In Old Icelandic, the broken L ligature appears in some instances, such as vꜹꝇum (field) and oꝇo (all). [9] It takes the form of a lowercase ⟨l⟩ with the top half shifted to the left, connected to the lower half with a thin horizontal stroke. This ligature is encoded in the Latin Extended-D Unicode block at U+A746 (uppercase) and U+A747 (lowercase), displaying as Ꝇ and ꝇ respectively.
In Central Alaskan Yupʼik and the Greenlandic language, ⟨ll⟩ stands for /ɬː/.
In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization of Mandarin Chinese, final ⟨-ll⟩ indicates a falling tone on a syllable ending in /ɻ/, which is otherwise spelled ⟨-l⟩.
In Haida (Bringhurst orthography), ⟨ll⟩ is glottalized /ˀl/.
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like and semivowels like and, as well as lateral approximants like.
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German ; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh. This turbulent airflow is called frication.
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English L, as in Larry. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth.
Ç or ç (C-cedilla) is a Latin script letter used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Manx, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish, Kazakh, and Romance alphabets. Romance languages that use this letter include Catalan, French, Portuguese, and Occitan, as a variant of the letter C with a cedilla. It is also occasionally used in Crimean Tatar and in Tajik to represent the sound. It is often retained in the spelling of loanwords from any of these languages in English, Basque, Dutch, Spanish and other languages using the Latin alphabet.
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme, or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.
A trigraph is a group of three characters used to represent a single sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters combined.
Ezh, 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 Persian alphabet letter ⟨ژ⟩, the Cyrillic letter ⟨Ж⟩, and the Esperanto letter ⟨Ĵ⟩.
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 ⟨ʎ⟩, a rotated lowercase letter ⟨y⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L
.
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, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is K
.
El is a letter of the Cyrillic script.
Ch is a digraph in the Latin script. It is treated as a letter of its own in the Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Ladino, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian Latynka and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. Formerly ch was also considered a separate letter for collation purposes in Modern Spanish, Vietnamese, and sometimes in Polish; now the digraph ch in these languages continues to be used, but it is considered as a sequence of letters and sorted as such.
The voiceless palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in a few spoken languages.
Ly is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Hungarian.
L, or l, is the 12th 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, plural els.
J, or j, is the tenth letter in 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. When used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the voiced palatal approximant it may be called yod or jod.
C, or c, is the third 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 cee. Cees is the plural form for this letter.
Ḷ is a letter of the Latin alphabet, derived from L with a diacritical dot below. It is or was used in some languages to represent various sounds.
Dz is a digraph of the Latin script, consisting of the consonants D and Z. It may represent, , or, depending on the language.