La (Indic)

La
La
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan
Tamil
Thai	ล
Malayalam	ല
Sinhala	ල
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ל
Greek	Λ
Latin	L, Ł, Ɬ
Cyrillic	Л, Љ, Ԓ, Ӆ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/l/
IAST transliteration	l L
ISCII code point	D1 (209)

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La is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, La is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .

Āryabhaṭa numeration[]

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The values of the different forms of ल are:^[1]

ल [lə] = 50 (५०)
लि [lɪ] = 5,000 (५ ०००)
लु [lʊ] = 500,000 (५ ०० ०००)
लृ [lri] = 50,000,000 (५ ०० ०० ०००)
लॢ [llə] = 5×10⁹ (५×१०^९)
ले [le] = 5×10¹¹ (५×१०^११)
लै [lɛː] = 5×10¹³ (५×१०^१३)
लो [loː] = 5×10¹⁵ (५×१०^१५)
लौ [lɔː] = 5×10¹⁷ (५×१०^१७)

Historic La[]

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. La as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . The Tocharian La had an alterante Fremdzeichen form, . The third form of la, in Kharoshthi () was probably derived from Aramaic separately from the Brahmi letter.

Brahmi La[]

The Brahmi letter , La, is probably derived from the Aramaic Lamed , and is thus related to the modern Latin L and Greek Lambda.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi La 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, with vowel marks not attested until later forms of Brahmi back-formed to match the geometric writing style.

Brahmi La historic forms
Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian La[]

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi , and has an alternate Fremdzeichen form used in conjuncts and as an alternate representation of Lä.

Tocharian La with vowel marks
La	Lā	Li	Lī	Lu	Lū	Lr	Lr̄	Le	Lai	Lo	Lau	Lä	Fremdzeichen

Kharoṣṭhī La[]

The Kharoṣṭhī letter is generally accepted as being derived from the Aramaic Lamed , and is thus related to L and Lambda, in addition to the Brahmi La.^[2]

Devanagari La[]

La (ल) is a consonant of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , after having gone through the Gupta letter . Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter લ, and the Modi letter

[1]

[2]

[3]