L

ISO basic Latin alphabet
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
v t e

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]

History

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 a shepherd's staff.^[2]

Typographic variants

In most

Another means of reducing such confusion is to use symbol ℓ, which is a

syntax <math>\ell</math> renders it as ${\displaystyle \ell }$. In mathematical formulas, an italic form (ℓ) of the script ℓ is the norm.

Sometimes seen in Web typography, a serif font for the lowercase letter ell, such as l, in otherwise sans-serif text was used.

In the blackletter type used in England until the seventeenth century,^[5][a] the letter L is rendered as ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {L}}}$.

Use in writing systems

English

In

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

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 systems

The

• The capital letter L is used as the
  italicised), l, was more often seen.^[b]
• The
  Roman numeral L represents the number 50.^[7]
• In the
  liter (or litre) is abbreviated using an upper-case (or a lower-case) L.^[3]
• In watchmaking, the ligne (a traditional French measure of length still used in the industry) is abbreviated using an upper-case L.^[8]
• In chemistry, L is used as a symbol for the Avogadro constant.^[9]

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

• ɮ ꞎ ˡ
• 𐞜
• 𐞝
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to L:^[13] 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^[14]
• ȴ : L with curl is used in Sino-Tibetanist linguistics^[15]
• Ꞁ ꞁ : Turned L was used by William Pryce to designate the Welsh voiced lateral spirant [ɬ]^[16] 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.^[17]
• Other variations are used for phonetic transcription:
  ᶫ^[18] 𝼑^[19][12] 𝼓^[19][12]
• Ꝇ ꝇ : Broken L was used in some medieval Nordic manuscripts^[20]
• Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to L:^[21]
  • 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
  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^[22]
• Ł or ł, "L with stroke" used in Polish and many neighbouring languages

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

• 𐤋 : Semitic letter Lamedh, from which the following symbols originally derive
  • Λ λ : Greek letter Lambda, from which the following letters derive
    • Л л :
      Cyrillic letter El
    • Ⲗⲗ :
      Coptic
      letter Lamda
    • 𐌋 :
      Old Italic
      letter L, which is the ancestor of modern Latin L
      • ᛚ : Runic letter laguz, which might derive from old Italic L
    • 𐌻 : Gothic letter laaz

Other representations

Computing

¹ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Lima	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ⓘ

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling )	Braille dots-123 Unified English Braille

Notes