Hungarian ly
Ly is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Hungarian.
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| Hungarian and English |
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Usage
Ly is the twentieth
palatal lateral approximant
).
It is used this way only in Hungarian. In Hungarian, even if two characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact.
The combination lj (considered two separate letters, L and J) is also common in Hungarian and is even pronounced [ʎ] by many speakers. However, even it is sometimes subject to the same reduction to /j/ that ly has been, mainly if it is at the end of a word.
History
Originally, the
alveolar lateral approximant). In the northern dialects, the phoneme /ʎ/ has been preserved.[1]
The digraph ly was also used for the sound /ʎ/ in Croatian alphabet before
Gaj's Latin Alphabet was introduced.[2]
Examples
These examples are Hungarian words that use the letter ly, with the English translation following:
- furulya = flute
- amely = which
- helyi = local
- golyó = ball
- lyuk = hole
- kehely = goblet
- folyó = river
References
- ^ BENKŐ Loránd; IMRE Samu (ed.): The Hungarian Language. Janua Linguarum, Series Practica, No. 134. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter (1972).
- ^ Alphabeti Serborum
