Ly is adigraph of theLatin alphabet, used inHungarian.
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| Hungarian and English |
Ly is the twentiethletter of theHungarian alphabet. Its Hungarian name iselipszilon/ɛlːipsilon/. Now, it can represent the same phoneme/j/ (palatal approximant) as the Hungarian letterj, but historically, it represented the different phoneme/ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant).
It is used this way only in Hungarian. In Hungarian, even if two characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and evenacronyms keep the letter intact.
The combinationlj (considered two separate letters, L and J) is also common in Hungarian and is even pronounced[ʎ] by many speakers. However, even it is sometimes subject to the same reduction to/j/ thatly has been, mainly if it is at the end of a word.
Originally, thedigraph letterly was used to represent the palatal lateral/ʎ/, just as the digraph letterny is still used to represent the palatal nasal/ɲ/. However, in the eastern dialects as well as in the standard dialect, the phoneme/ʎ/ lost its lateral feature and merged with/j/ (akin toSpanishyeísmo). The Hungarian letterly came to be pronounced the same as the Hungarian letterj. In the western dialects,/ʎ/ lost its palatal feature and merged with/l/ (alveolar lateral approximant). In the northern dialects, the phoneme/ʎ/ has been preserved.[1]
The digraphly was also used for the sound/ʎ/ in Croatian alphabet beforeGaj's Latin Alphabet was introduced.[2]
These examples are Hungarian words that use the letterly, with the English translation following:
