Ll

Ll/ll is a

English

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.

Welsh

In

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+1EFA Ỻ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL and U+1EFB ỻ LATIN 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]

Romance languages

Asturian

In the standard

A variation of this digraph, ⟨l-l⟩, is used to separate a verb form that ends in -l and the enclitics lu, la, lo, los or les. This is pronounced as a geminated ⟨l⟩ /ll/. For example, val-lo ("it is worth it").^[5]

Another 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). This may also be written as ⟨l.l⟩ in devices that do not support the Unicode characters U+1E36 Ḷ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH DOT BELOW and U+1E37 ḷ LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH DOT BELOW.^[5]

Catalan

In Catalan, ⟨ll⟩ represents the phoneme /ʎ/, as in llengua (language, tongue), enllaç (linkage, connection), or coltell (knife).

L with middle dot

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,^[6] 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.

Galician

In official

Spanish

In Spanish, ⟨ll⟩ was considered from 1754 to 2010 the fourteenth letter of the

• This single letter was called elle pronounced "elye", but often losing the /l/ sound and simplifying to "eh-ye".
• The letter was
  Association of Spanish Language Academies adopted standard Latin alphabet collation rules. Since then, the digraph ⟨ll⟩ has been considered a sequence of two characters.^[8] (A similar situation occurred with the Spanish-language digraph ch
  .)
• ligature
  of two ⟨l⟩s, with distinct uppercase and lowercase forms.
• Today, most Spanish speakers pronounce ⟨ll⟩ and ⟨y⟩ as the same sound, a phenomenon called
  palatal lateral approximant
  )— still exists in northern Spain (mostly in rural areas) and in Andes Mountains. In parts of Colombia and in the Andean regions of Ecuador, ⟨ll⟩ is pronounced /ʒ/ but ⟨y⟩ is pronounced /ʝ/.

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

In Albanian, ⟨L⟩ stands for the sound /l/, while ⟨Ll⟩ is pronounced as the velarized sound /ɫ/.

Icelandic

In Icelandic, the ⟨ll⟩ can represent [tɬ] (similar to a voiceless alveolar lateral affricate),^[9] [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.

Broken L

In Old Icelandic, the broken L ligature appears in some instances, such as vꜹꝇum (field) and oꝇo (all).^[10] 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.

Inuit-Yupik languages

In

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

See also

• Lh (digraph)
• Lj (digraph)
• Hungarian ly

References