Lj (digraph) - L

L

⟨lh⟩, in Occitan, Gallo, and Portuguese, represents a palatal lateral approximant . In many Indigenous languages of the Americas it represents a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In the transcription of Australian Aboriginal languages it represents a dental lateral, . In the Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization of Mandarin Chinese, initial ⟨lh⟩ indicates an even tone on a syllable beginning in, which is otherwise spelled ⟨l⟩.

⟨lj⟩ is a letter in some Slavic languages, such as the Latin orthographies of Serbo-Croatian, where it represents a palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/. For example, the word ljiljan is pronounced /ʎiʎan/. Ljudevit Gaj first used the digraph ⟨lj⟩ in 1830; he devised it by analogy with a Cyrillic digraph, which developed into the ligature љ.

The sound /ʎ/ is written ⟨gl⟩ in Italian, in Castilian Spanish and Catalan as ⟨ll⟩, in Portuguese as ⟨lh⟩, in some Hungarian dialects as ⟨lly⟩, and in Latvian as ⟨ļ⟩. In Czech and Slovak, it is often transcribed as ⟨ľ⟩; it is used more frequently in the latter language. There are dedicated Unicode glyphs, lj, Lj, and LJ.

⟨ll⟩ and ⟨l·l⟩ (see article)

⟨ḷḷ⟩ is used in Asturian for a sound that was historically but which is now an affricate, .

⟨lv⟩ is used in Yélî Dnye of Papua New Guinea for doubly articulated /l͜β/.

⟨lw⟩ is used for /lʷ/ in Arrernte.

⟨lx⟩ in used in Nambikwara for a glottalized /ˀl/.

⟨ly⟩ (see article)