L

12th letter of the Latin alphabet
the letter of the alphabet

L, or l, is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is el (pronounced /'//ɛ//l/ EL), plural els.

In most sans serif typefaces, the lowercase letter ell , written , may be difficult to distinguish from the uppercase letter "eye" ; in some serif typefaces, the glyph may be confused with the glyph , the digit one. To avoid such confusion, some newer computer fonts (such as Trebuchet MS) have a finial, a curve to the right at the bottom of the lowercase letter ell. Another means of reducing such confusion is to use symbol , which is a cursive, handwriting style lowercase form of the letter "ell"; this form is seen in European road signs and advertisements. In Japan, for example, this is the symbol for the liter. (The International Committee for Weights and Measures recommends using or for the liter, The TeX syntax <math>\ell</math> renders it as In mathematical formulas, an italic form of the script ℓ is the norm. Sometimes seen in Web typography, a serif font for the lowercase letter ell, such as , in otherwise sans serif text was used. In the blackletter type used in England until the seventeenth century, the letter L is rendered as .

In English orthography, usually represents the phoneme /l/, which can have several sound values, depending on the speaker's accent, and whether it occurs before or after a vowel. In Received Pronunciation, the alveolar lateral approximant (the sound represented in IPA by lowercase ) occurs before a vowel, as in lip or blend, while the velarized alveolar lateral approximant (IPA ) occurs in bell and milk. This velarization does not occur in many European languages that use ; it is also a factor making the pronunciation of difficult for users of languages that lack or have different values for it, such as Japanese or some southern dialects of Chinese. A medical condition or speech impediment restricting the pronunciation of is known as lambdacism. In English orthography, is often silent in such words as walk or could (though its presence can modify the preceding vowel letter's value), and it is usually silent in such words as palm and psalm; however, there is some regional variation. L is the eleventh most frequently used letter in the English language.

usually represents the sound or some other lateral consonant. Common digraphs include , which has a value identical to in English, but has the separate value voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (IPA ) in Welsh, where it can appear in an initial position. In Spanish, represents (, , , , or , depending on dialect). A palatal lateral approximant or palatal (IPA ) occurs in many languages, and is represented by in Italian, in Spanish and Catalan, in Portuguese, and in Latvian. In Turkish, generally represents , but represents before , , , or
In Washo, lower case represents a typical [l] sound, while upper case represents a voiceless [l̥] sound, a bit like double in Welsh.

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses to represent the voiced alveolar lateral approximant and a small caps to represent the voiced velar lateral approximant.

The capital letter L is used as the currency sign for the Albanian lek and the Honduran lempira. It was often used, especially in handwriting, as the currency sign for the Italian lira. Historically, it was commonly used as a currency sign for the British pound sterling (to abbreviate the Latin [[Carolingian pound, a pound, see £sd); in modern usage it has been overtaken by the pound sign (£), which is based on the blackletter form of the letter. In running text, its lower case form (usually italicised), l, was more often seen. The Roman numeral L represents the number 50. In the International system of units, the liter (or litre) is abbreviated using an upper case (or a lower case) L.
In watchmaking, the ligne (a traditional French measure of length still used in the industry) is abbreviated using an upper case L.
In chemistry, L is used as a symbol for the Avogadro constant.