InInglis,L can hae several soond values, dependin on whether it occurs afore or efter a vowel. Thealveolar lateral approximant (the soond representit inIPA bi lawercase[l]) occurs afore a vowel, as in 'lip' or 'please', while thevelarized alveolar lateral approximant (IPA[ɫ]) occurs in 'bell' an 'milk'. This velarization daes nae occur in mony European leid that uiseL; it is an aa a factor makin the pronunciation oL difficult for uisers o leids that lackL or hae different values for it, sic asJapanese or some soothren dialects oCheenese.
L can occur afore almaist onyobstruent (stap,fricative, oraffricate) in Inglis. Common digraphs includeLL, which haes a value identical taeL in Inglish, but haes the separate valuevoiceless alveolar lateral fricative (IPA/ɬ/) inWelsh, whaur it can appear in an ineetial poseetion.
Apalatal lateral approximant or palatal 'L' (IPA/ʎ/) occurs in mony leids, an is representit bi 'GL' inItalian, 'LL' inSpainyie anCatalan, 'LH' inPortuguese, an 'Ļ' inLatvie.
In Inglis writin,L is eften silent in sic wirds as 'walk' or 'coud' (its presence can modify the precedin vowel letter's soond; e.g. 'wak' micht be pronoonced tae rhyme wi 'back').
In some fonts, the lawercase letter L, 'l' mey be difficult tae distinguish frae thedeegit ane, '1' or an uppercaseletter I, 'I'. In recent times, mony new fonts hae curved the lawercase fairm tae the richt, an it is increasingly common, especially on European road signs an advertisements. A mair stylized version based on the haundwrittenletterlike 'ℓ' is whiles uised in mathematics an elsewhaur. ItsLaTeX command is\ell, its codepynt is U+2113, an its numeric character reference is "ℓ".
