El (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter El
Phonetic usage:	[l]
Name:	людиѥ
Numeric value:	30
Derived from:	Greek letter Lambda (Λ λ)
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
А Б В Г Ґ Д Ђ Ѓ Е Ѐ Ё Є Ж З З́ Ѕ И Ѝ Й І Ї Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О Ō П Р С С́ Т Ћ Ќ У Ӯ Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Non-Slavic letters
А́ Ӑ А̄ А̊ А̃ Ӓ Ӓ̄ Ӕ Ә Ә́ Ә̃ Ӛ Ғ Г̑ Ҕ Ӻ Ӷ Д̆ Ӗ Е̄ Е̃ Ё̄ Є̈ Ӂ Җ Ӝ Ҙ Ӟ Ԑ Ԑ̈ Ӡ Ӣ И̃ Ҋ Ӥ Қ Ӄ Ҡ Ҟ Ҝ Ԛ Ӆ Ԯ Ԓ Ӎ Ӊ Ң Ԩ Ӈ Ҥ О̆ О̃ Ӧ Ө Ө̄ Ӫ Ҩ Ԥ Р̌ Ҏ Ҫ Ҭ У̃ Ӱ Ӳ Ү Ү́ Ұ Х̑ Ҳ Ӽ Ӿ Һ Ԧ Ҵ Ҷ Ӵ Ӌ Ҹ Ҽ Ҿ Ы̆ Ы̄ Ӹ Ҍ Э̆ Э̄ Э̇ Ӭ Ӭ́ Ӭ̄ Ю̆ Ю̈ Ю̄ Я̆ Я̄ Я̈ Ԝ Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ꙁ Ꙃ Ꙅ Ꙇ Ꙉ Ҁ Ѻ ОУ Ꙋ Ѡ Ѽ Ꙍ Ѿ Ꙏ Ѣ Ꙑ Ꙓ Ꙕ Ꙗ Ѥ Ѧ Ꙙ Ѫ Ꙛ Ѩ Ꙝ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ԙ Ꙟ Ꙡ Ꙣ Ꙥ Ꙧ Ꙩ Ꙫ Ꙭ ꙮ Ꚙ Ꚛ Ԁ Ԕ Ԗ Ԡ Ԣ Ҧ Ꚋ Ꚁ Ꚅ Ꚍ Ꚕ Ꚏ Ꚗ Ꚃ Ԃ Ԅ Ԉ Ԋ Ԍ Ԏ Ԇ Ꚑ Ꚉ Ꚇ Ꚓ Ԟ Ԫ Ԭ Г̧ Г̄
List of Cyrillic letters Cyrillic digraphs
v t

El (Л л; italics: Л л) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

El commonly represents the alveolar lateral approximant /l/. In Slavic languages it may be either palatalized or slightly velarized; see below.

Allography[]

In some typefaces the Cyrillic letter El has a grapheme which may be confused with the Cyrillic letter Pe (Пп). Note that Pe has a straight left leg, without the hook. An alternative form of El (Ʌ ʌ) is more common in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbian.

History[]

The Cyrillic letter El was derived from the Greek letter lambda (Λ λ).

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was людиѥ (ljudije), meaning "people".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, Л had a value of 30.

Pronunciation[]

As used in the alphabets of various languages, El represents the following sounds:

• alveolar lateral approximant /l/, like the pronunciation of ⟨l⟩ in "lip"
• palatalized alveolar lateral approximant /lʲ/
• velarized alveolar lateral approximant /ɫ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨l⟩ in "bell" and "milk"
• voiced alveolar lateral fricative /ɮ/ and its palatalized equivalent /ɮʲ/

The /l/ phoneme in Slavic languages has two realizations: hard ([l], [ɫ], or [lˠ], exact pronunciation varies) and soft (pronounced as [lʲ]) – see palatalization for details. Serbian and Macedonian orthographies use a separate letter Љ for the soft /l/ – it looks as a ligature of El with the soft sign (Ь). In these languages, ⟨Л⟩ denotes only hard /l/. Pronunciation of hard /l/ is sometimes given as [l], but it is always more velar than [l] in French or German.

Slavic languages except Serbian and Macedonian use another orthographic convention to distinguish between hard and soft /l/, so ⟨Л⟩ can denote either variant depending on the subsequent letter.

The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language.

In addition, л was formerly used in Chukchi to represent the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ but has since been replaced by ԓ.

Related letters and other similar characters[]

• Λ λ : Greek letter Lambda
• Љ
• Ӆ ӆ : Cyrillic letter El with tail
• Ԓ ԓ : Cyrillic letter El with hook
• Ԯ ԯ : Cyrillic letter El with descender
• L l : Latin letter L
• Ł ł : Latin letter L with stroke

Computing codes[]

External links[]

• The dictionary definition of Л at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of л at Wiktionary