Ḷ Explained

Ḷ (minuscule: ḷ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, derived from L with a diacritical dot below. It is or was used in some languages to represent various sounds.

• In Asturian, a digraph (Ḷḷ, lower case: ḷḷ) is used to represent some western dialectal phonemes corresponding to standard ll (representing a palatal lateral approximant pronounced as /[ʎ]/).^{[1] [2]} Among this group of dialectal pronunciations, usually called che vaqueira, can manifest as: a voiced retroflex plosive pronounced as /[ɖ]/, a voiced retroflex affricate pronounced as /[ɖʐ]/, a voiceless retroflex affricate pronounced as /[ʈʂ]/ or a voiceless alveolar affricate pronounced as /[t͡s]/.^[3] Formerly, this group of sounds were represented as lh (in Fernán Coronas's proposed writing system), ts or ŝ. However, this grapheme is used only in dialectal texts and in toponyms of western Asturias.^[4] Because of the difficulties of writing it in digital texts, non-diacritical l.l (majuscule: L.l) is also often used.^[5]

In the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, ḷ is used to represent vocalic pronounced as /link/.

It is used to represent a retroflex lateral approximant /ɭ/ in several modern language of South Asia when using ISO 15919 or similar transliteration schemes.

It is used to represent a voiced palatal lateral approximant [ʎ] in Iñupiaq.

Computer encoding

HTML characters and Unicode code point numbers:

• Ḷ: Ḷ or Ḷ  -
• ḷ: ḷ or ḷ  -

Notes and References

1. http://www.academiadelallingua.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Normes-Ortogr%C3%A1fiques-7%C2%AA-edici%C3%B3n-2012.pdf Normes Ortográfiques
2. http://www.academiadelallingua.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Gramatica_Llingua.pdf Gramática de la Llingua Asturiana
3. Xosé Lluis García Arias, Gramática Histórica de la Lengua Asturiana, Llibrería Académica, Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, Oviedo/Uviéu (Spain), 2003.
4. http://www.academiadelallingua.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Normes-Ortogr%C3%A1fiques-7%C2%AA-edici%C3%B3n-2012.pdf Normes Ortográfiques
5. http://www.academiadelallingua.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Normes-Ortogr%C3%A1fiques-7%C2%AA-edici%C3%B3n-2012.pdf Normes Ortográfiques