Ł (minuscule: ł), known as L with stroke, is a Latin-script letter. It is used in the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Silesian, Belarusian Latin, Ukrainian Latin, Kurdish (some dialects), Wymysorys, Navajo, Dëne Sųłıné, Iñupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, Sm'algya̱x, Nisga'a, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai script. In some Slavic languages, it represents the continuation of the Proto-Slavic non-palatal (dark L), which evolved further into in Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, and Silesian. In most non-European languages, it represents a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative or similar sound.

Glyph shape Ł

In normal typefaces, the letter has a stroke approximately in the middle of the vertical stem, crossing it at an angle between 70° and 45°, never horizontally. In cursive handwriting and typefaces that imitate it, the capital letter has a horizontal stroke through the middle and looks very similar to the pound sign . In the cursive lowercase letter, the stroke is also horizontal and placed on top of the letter instead of going through the middle of the stem, which would not be distinguishable from the letter t. The stroke is either straight or slightly wavy, depending on the style. Unlike , the letter is usually written without a noticeable loop at the top. Most publicly available multilingual cursive typefaces, including commercial ones, feature an incorrect glyph for .

A rare variant glyph of the grapheme is a cursive double-ł ligature, used in words such as ', ' or ' (archaic: Allah), where the strokes at the top of the letters are joined into a single stroke. a pronunciation that is preserved in the eastern part of Poland and among the Polish minority in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. This pronunciation is similar to Russian unpalatalised in native words and grammar forms.

In modern Polish, Ł is usually pronounced (as [w] in English wet). This pronunciation first appeared among Polish lower classes in the 16th century. It was considered an uncultured accent by the upper classes (who pronounced as ) until the mid-20th century, when this distinction gradually began to fade.

The shift from to in Polish has affected all instances of dark L, even word-initially or intervocalically, e.g. ładny ("pretty, nice") is pronounced , słowo ("word") is , and ciało ("body") is . Ł often alternates with clear L, such as the plural forms of adjectives and verbs in the past tense that are associated with masculine personal nouns, e.g. mały → mali ( → ). Alternation is also common in declension of nouns, e.g. from nominative to locative, tło → na tle ( → ).

Polish final Ł also often corresponds to Ukrainian word-final Ve (Cyrillic) and Belarusian Short U (Cyrillic). Thus, "he gave" is "dał" in Polish, "дав" in Ukrainian, "даў" in Belarusian (all pronounced ), but "дал" in Russian.

Examples

Notable figures

  • Marie Skłodowska Curie (), a scientist awarded the Nobel prize in both physics and chemistry, who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity.
  • Karol Józef Wojtyła (), John Paul II, Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005
  • Kazimierz Pułaski (), known in English as Casimir Pulaski, a Polish soldier and commander, a brigadier general in the Continental Army cavalry during American Revolutionary War
  • Ignacy Łukasiewicz (), the inventor of the modern paraffin lamp
  • Jan Łukasiewicz (), the inventor of Polish notation
  • Lech Wałęsa (), Polish labor leader and former president
  • Stanisław Lem (), Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy, and satire, and a trained physician
  • Stanisław August Poniatowski, last monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
  • Wisława Szymborska (), a Polish poet and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Witold Lutosławski, Polish composer
  • Wacław Sierpiński (), Polish mathematician
  • Michał Kwiatkowski, a Polish cyclist and former world champion.

Some examples of words with 'ł':

  • Władysław<!--intentional link to DAB page-->
  • Wisła (Vistula)
  • Łódź
  • Łukasz (Lucas / Luke)
  • Michał (Michael)
  • Złoty (zloty / golden)

In contexts where Ł is not readily available as a glyph, basic L is used instead. Thus, the surname Małecki would be spelled Malecki in a foreign country.

In the 1980s, when some computers available in Poland lacked Polish diacritics, it was common practice to use a pound sterling sign (£) for Ł. This practice ceased after DOS-based and Mac computers came with a code page for such characters.

Other languages

In Belarusian Łacinka (both in the 1929 and 1962 versions), corresponds to Cyrillic (El), and is normally pronounced (almost exactly as in English pull).

In the North American languages Navajo, Elaponke, and Iñupiaq, is used for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative , like the Welsh double L.

is used in the orthographic transcription of Ahtna, an Athabaskan language spoken in Alaska; it represents a breathy lateral fricative. It is also used in Tanacross, a related Athabaskan language.

When transcribing Armenian into the Latin alphabet, may be used to write the letter , for example Ղուկաս => Łukas. In Classical Armenian, was pronounced as , which morphed into in both standard varieties of modern Armenian. Other transcriptions of include , or .<!--For Venetion, see 'See also' section-->

Computer usage

thumb|right|upright 1.5|The most common keyboard layout used in Poland

The letter is encoded in Unicode with the codepoints

These symbols are included as standard using the keyboard mapping commonly used in Poland. (For entry on other systems, see Unicode input.)

See also

  • Ў, ў – short U (Belarusian Cyrillic)
  • £ – pound sign
  • In Venetian, a similar glyph , (L with bar, a horizontal bar) is used as substitution for L in many words in which the pronunciation of "L" has changed for some dialects, i.e. by becoming voiceless or becoming the sound of the shorter vowel corresponding to or .

References