| L with stroke | |
|---|---|
| Ł ł | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin |
| Type | alphabetic |
| Language of origin | Chipewyan,Chukchi,Iñupiaq,Kashubian,Kwakʼwala,Latvian,Lower Sorbian,Navajo,Northern Khanty,Okanagan,Old English,Polish,Silesian,Tlingit,Upper Sorbian,Venetan |
| Sound values | |
| In Unicode | U+0141, U+0142 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Transliterations | w |
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Left to right |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Ł orł, described in English asL with stroke, is a letter of thePolish,Kashubian,Sorbian,Silesian,Belarusian Latin,Ukrainian Latin,Kurdish (some dialects),Wymysorys,Navajo,Dëne Sųłıné,Iñupiaq,Zuni,Hupa,Sm'álgyax,Nisga'a, andDogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for theVenetian language, and theISO 11940 romanization of theThai script. In some Slavic languages, it represents the continuation of theProto-Slavic non-palatal⟨L⟩ (dark L), which evolved further into/w/ in Polish, Kashubian, and Sorbian. In most non-European languages, it represents avoiceless alveolar lateral fricative or similar sound.
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. Incursive handwriting and typefaces that imitate it, the capital letter has a horizontal stroke through the middle and looks very similar to thepound 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⟨l⟩, the letter⟨ł⟩ is usually written without a noticeable loop at the top. Most publicly available multilingual cursive typefaces, including commercial ones, feature an incorrect glyph for⟨ł⟩.[1]
A rare variant of the ł glyph is a cursive double-ł ligature, used in words such asJagiełło,Radziwiłł orAłłach (archaic: Allah), where the strokes at the top of the letters are joined into a single stroke.[1]
In Polish,⟨Ł⟩ is used to distinguish the historical dark (velarized) L [ɫ] fromclear L [l]. The Polish⟨Ł⟩ now sounds the same as the English⟨W⟩, [w] as inwater (except for older speakers in some eastern Polish dialects where it still sounds velarized). The name of this diacritic is called thekreska, which is shared with the five letters with acute accents.
In 1440,Jakub Parkoszowic [pl] proposed a letter resembling to represent clear L. For dark L he suggested "l" with a stroke running in the opposite direction to the modern version.[citation needed] The latter was introduced in 1514–1515 by Stanisław Zaborowski in hisOrthographia seu modus recte scribendi et legendi Polonicum idioma quam utilissimus. L with stroke originally represented avelarized alveolar lateral approximant[ɫ],[2] a pronunciation that is preserved in the eastern part of Poland[3] and among the Polish minority inLithuania,Belarus, andUkraine. This pronunciation is similar toRussian unpalatalised⟨Л⟩ in native words and grammar forms.
In modern Polish, Ł is usually pronounced/w/ (as [w] in Englishwet).[4] This pronunciation first appeared among Polish lower classes in the 16th century. It was considered an uncultured accent by the upper classes (who pronounced⟨Ł⟩ as/ɫ/) until the mid-20th century, when this distinction gradually began to fade.[citation needed]
The shift from[ɫ] to[w] in Polish has affected all instances of dark L, even word-initially or intervocalically, e.g.ładny ("pretty, nice") is pronounced[ˈwadnɨ],słowo ("word") is[ˈswɔvɔ], andciało ("body") is[ˈtɕawɔ]. Ł often alternates with clear L, such as theplural forms ofadjectives and verbs in the past tense that are associated with masculine personal nouns, e.g.mały →mali ([ˈmawɨ] →[ˈmali]). Alternation is also common indeclension of nouns, e.g. fromnominative tolocative,tło →na tle ([twɔ] →[naˈtlɛ]).
Polish final Ł also often corresponds toUkrainian word-final⟨В⟩Ve (Cyrillic) andBelarusian⟨Ў⟩Short U (Cyrillic). Thus, "he gave" is "dał" in Polish, "дав" in Ukrainian, "даў" in Belarusian (all pronounced[daw]), but "дал"[daɫ] in Russian.
Notable figures
Some examples of words with 'ł':
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 acode page for such characters.
In BelarusianŁacinka (both in the 1929[5] and 1962[6][7] versions),⟨Ł⟩ corresponds to Cyrillic⟨Л⟩ (El), and is normally pronounced/ɫ/ (almost exactly as in Englishpull).
In the North American languagesNavajo,Elaponke, andIñupiaq,⟨Ł⟩ is used for avoiceless alveolar lateral fricative/ɬ/, like theWelsh double L.[8][9][10][11]
⟨Ł⟩ is used in orthographic transcription ofAhtna, anAthabaskan language spoken in Alaska; it represents abreathy lateral fricative.[12][13] It is also used inTanacross, a related Athabaskan language.[14]
When transcribingArmenian into the Latin alphabet,⟨Ł⟩ may be used to write the letter⟨Ղ⟩/ʁ/, for example Ղուկաս => Łukas. InClassical Armenian,⟨Ղ⟩ was pronounced as/ɫ/, which morphed into/ʁ/ in both standard varieties of modern Armenian. Other transcriptions of⟨Ղ⟩ include⟨Ṙ⟩,⟨Ġ⟩ or⟨Gh⟩.
The letter is encoded inUnicode with thecodepoints
These symbols are included as standard using thekeyboard mapping commonly used in Poland. (For entry on other systems, seeUnicode input.)
ł = English l hard, dental ; ... It is true, of course, that the majority of Poles nowadays pronounce this sound with the lips, like the Englishw. But this is a careless pronunciation leading eventually to the disappearance of a sound typically Polish (and Russian also ; it has already disappeared from the other Slavonic languages, Czech and Serbian) ... In articulatingl, your tongue ... projects considerably beyond the horizontal line separating the gums from the teeth and touches the gums or the palate. To pronounceł ... the tongue should be held flat and rigid in the bottom of the mouth with the tip just bent upwards sufficiently to touch the edge of the front upper teeth. (On no account should the tongue extend beyond the line separating the teeth from the gums.) Holding the tongue rigidly in this position, a speaker should then pronounce one of the vowelsa,o oru, consciously dropping the tongue on each occasion, to obtain the hardł quite distinct from the softl.
ł (so-called barrel l) is not pronounced like anl except in Eastern dialects and, increasingly infrequently, in stage pronunciation. It is most often pronounced like Englishw inway,how. "łeb, dała, był, piłka.
The sounds below exist in English but are pronounced or rendered differently:c ...h[, ]ch ...j ...ł asw inwet[, ] łach ład słowo[; ]r ...w
