Ll

Ll/ll is a digraph that occurs in several languages.

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[]

The Middle-Welsh LL ligature.^[1]
Unicode: U+1EFA and U+1EFB.

In Welsh, ⟨ll⟩ stands for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative sound (IPA: [ɬ]). This sound is very common in place names in Wales because it occurs in the word llan, for example, Llanelli, where the ⟨ll⟩ appears twice, or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, where the ⟨ll⟩ appears five times – with two instances of llan.

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 at U+1EFA (uppercase) and U+1EFB (lowercase), displaying as Ỻ and ỻ respectively.^[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]

Spanish[]

ʎ

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ʝ

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In Spanish, ⟨ll⟩ was considered from 1754 to 2010 the fourteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet because of its representation of a palatal lateral articulation consonant phoneme (as defined by the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language).^[5]

• This single letter was called elle pronounced "elye", but often losing the /l/ sound and simplifying to "eh-ye".
• The letter was collated after ⟨l⟩ as a separate entry from 1803 until April 1994 when the X Congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies adopted standard Latin alphabet collation rules. Since then, the digraph ⟨ll⟩ has been considered a sequence of two characters.^[6] (A similar situation occurred with the Spanish-language digraph ch.)
• Hypercorrection leads some to wrongly capitalize ⟨ll⟩ as a single letter, as with the Dutch IJ, for example *LLosa instead of Llosa. In handwriting, ⟨Ll⟩ is written as a ligature of two ⟨l⟩s, with distinct uppercase and lowercase forms.
• Today, most Spanish speakers outside Spain pronounce ⟨ll⟩ with virtually the same sound as ⟨y⟩, a phenomenon called yeísmo. In much of the Spanish-speaking Americas, and in many regions of Spain, ⟨ll⟩ is produced /ʝ/ (voiced palatal fricative); in Colombia and Tabasco, Mexico, as well as Rioplatense speakers in both Argentina and Uruguay, pronounce ll as /ʒ/ (voiced postalveolar fricative) or /ʃ/ (voiceless postalveolar fricative).

Galician[]

In official Galician spelling the ⟨ll⟩ combination stands for the phoneme /ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant, a palatal counterpart of /l/).

Catalan[]

⟨ŀl⟩ ligature as used in Catalan on a Barcelona Metro sign

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+140 (lowercase) respectively.

In Catalan typography, ⟨l·l⟩ is intended to fill two spaces, not three,^[7] 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.

Philippine languages[]

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 and Villanueva are respectively pronounced [ljɐmˈzon]/[ljɐmˈson], [ˈljɐmas], [pɐˈdɪːlja] and [ˌbɪːljanuˈwɛːba]/[ˌvɪːljanuˈwɛːva].

Furthermore, in Ilocano ⟨ll⟩ represents a geminate alveolar lateral approximant /lː/, like in Italian.

Albanian[]

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),^[8] [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).^[9] 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.

Miscellanea[]

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 Central Alaskan Yup'ik and the Greenlandic language, ⟨ll⟩ stands for /ɬː/.

In Haida (Bringhurst orthography), ⟨ll⟩ is glottalized /ˀl/.

See also[]

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

References[]