Ḷ (Indic)

Ḷ
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan	ླྀ
Malayalam	ഌ
Sinhala	ඏ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ל
Greek	Λ
Latin	L, Ł, Ɬ
Cyrillic	Л, Љ, Ԓ, Ӆ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/l̩/
IAST transliteration	ḷ Ḷ
ISCII code point	00 (0)

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Ḷ or Vocalic L is a vowel symbol of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ḷ is derived from the Brahmi letter . As an Indic vowel, Ḷ comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a sign for modifying a base consonant. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the inherent "A" vowel.

Āryabhaṭa numeration[]

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The ॢ sign was used to modify a consonant's value ×10⁸, but the vowel letter ऌ did not have an inherent value by itself.^[1]

Historic Ḷ[]

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Ḷ as found in Brahmi was missing in earlier geometric styles, but emerged as a vowel mark during more flowing styles of Brahmi, such as the Kushana and Gupta. In both Tocharian and Kharoṣṭhī, Ḷ is not currently known from any source materials.

Brahmi Ḷ[]

The Brahmi letter Ḷ is only found as a vowel mark, and is derived from the consonant La, and therefore is probably from the Aramaic Lamed . This would make it related to the modern Latin L and Greek Lambda.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Ḷ can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[3] As the earliest and most geometric style of Brahmi, the letters found on the Edicts of Ashoka and other records from around that time are normally the reference form for Brahmi letters, but Ḷ must be back-formed from later forms to match the reference geometric writing style, and the reference image for the independent letter is just the vowel mark enlarged to the size of a full letter.

Devanagari Ḷ[]

Devanagari independent Ḷ and Ḷ vowel sign.

Ḷ (ऌ) is a vowel of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via Gupta. Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter ઌ, and the Modi letter