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]
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.
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 LSD); 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.[a]
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 glyphl 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+2113ℓSCRIPT 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][b] the letter L is rendered as .
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to L:[12]U+1D0CᴌLATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL L WITH STROKE and U+1D38ᴸMODIFIER 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+A780ꞀLATIN CAPITAL LETTER TURNED L, and U+A781ꞁLATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED L.
^"L" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989) Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. (1993); "el", "ells", op. cit.
^ ab"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.
