Ḷ
Example glyphs
Bengali-Assamese
Tibetan	ླྀ
Malayalam	ഌ
Sinhala	ඏ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ל
Greek	Λ
Latin	L, Ł, Ɬ
Cyrillic	Л, Љ, Ԓ, Ӆ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/l̩/
IAST transliteration	ḷ Ḷ
ISCII code point	00 (0)

Ḷ or Vocalic L is a vowel symbol of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ḷ is derived from the Brahmi letter . As an Indic vowel, Ḷ comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a sign for modifying a base consonant. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the inherent "A" vowel.

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The ॢ sign was used to modify a consonant's value ×10⁸, but the vowel letter ऌ did not have an inherent value by itself.^[1]

Historic Ḷ

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Ḷ as found in Brahmi was missing in earlier geometric styles, but emerged as a vowel mark during more flowing styles of Brahmi, such as the Kushana and Gupta. In both Tocharian and Kharoṣṭhī, Ḷ is not currently known from any source materials.

Devanagari Ḷ

Devanagari independent Ḷ and Ḷ vowel sign.

Ḷ (ऌ) is a vowel of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via Gupta. Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter ઌ, and the Modi letter 𑘈.

Bengali-Assamese Ḷ

Bengali-Assamese independent Ḷ and Ḷ vowel sign.

Ḷ (ঌ) is a vowel of the Bengali-Assamese abugida. It is derived from the Siddhaṃ letter , and is marked by the lack of horizontal head line and less geometric shape than its Devanagari counterpart, ऌ.

Gujarati Ḷ

Gujarati independent Ḷ and Ḷ vowel sign.

Ḷ (ઌ) is a vowel of the Gujarati abugida. It is derived from the Devanagari Ḷ , and ultimately the Brahmi letter .

Javanese Ḷ

Telugu Ḷ

Telugu independent vowel and vowel sign Ḷ.

Ḷ (ఌ) is a vowel of the Telugu abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . It is closely related to the Kannada letter ಌ. Like in other Indic scripts, Telugu vowels have two forms: and independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of Telugu consonant letters. Ḷ is a non-attaching vowel sign, and does not alter the underlying consonant or contextually shape itself in any way.

Telugu Ḷ vowel sign on క, ఖ, గ, ఘ & ఙ: Kḷ, Khḷ, Gḷ, Ghḷ and Ngḷ.

Malayalam Ḷ

Malayalam independent vowel and vowel sign Ḷ.

Ḷ (ഌ) is a vowel of the Malayalam abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Grantha letter ḷ. Like in other Indic scripts, Malayalam vowels have two forms: an independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of consonant letters. Vowel signs in Malayalam usually sit adjacent to its base consonant - below, to the left, right, or both left and right, but are always pronounced after the consonant sound.

Odia Ḷ

Odia independent vowel and vowel sign Ḷ.

Ḷ (ଌ) is a vowel of the Odia abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter ḷ. Like in other Indic scripts, Odia vowels have two forms: an independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of consonant letters. Vowel signs in Odia usually sit adjacent to its base consonant - below, to the left, right, or both left and right, but are always pronounced after the consonant sound. No base consonants are altered in form when adding a vowel sign, and there are no consonant+vowel ligatures in Odia.

Comparison of Ḷ

The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including Ḷ, are related as well.

Comparison of Ḷ in different scripts

Aramaic Kharoṣṭhī - Ashoka Brahmi Kushana Brahmi[lower-alpha 1] 𑀍 Tocharian[lower-alpha 2] - Gupta Brahmi 𑀍 Pallava - Kadamba - Bhaiksuki 𑰈 Siddhaṃ Grantha 𑌌 Cham - Sinhala ඏ Pyu / Old Mon[lower-alpha 3] - Tibetan ླྀ Newa 𑐈 Ahom - Malayalam ഌ Telugu ఌ Burmese ၔ Lepcha - Ranjana Saurashtra ꢊ Dives Akuru - Kannada ಌ Kayah Li - Limbu - Soyombo[lower-alpha 4] 𑩚 Khmer - Tamil - Chakma - Tai Tham - Meitei Mayek - Gaudi - Thai - Lao - Tai Le - Marchen - Tirhuta 𑒉 New Tai Lue - Tai Viet - Aksara Kawi - 'Phags-pa - Odia ଌ Sharada 𑆋 Rejang - Batak - Buginese - Zanabazar Square - Bengali-Assamese Takri - Javanese ꦊ Balinese ᬍ Makasar - Hangul[lower-alpha 5] - Northern Nagari - Dogri - Laṇḍā - Sundanese ᮼ Baybayin - Modi 𑘈 Gujarati ઌ Khojki - Khudabadi - Mahajani - Tagbanwa - Devanagari Nandinagari - Kaithi - Gurmukhi - Multani - Buhid - Canadian Syllabics[lower-alpha 6] - Soyombo[lower-alpha 7] 𑩚 Sylheti Nagari - Gunjala Gondi - Masaram Gondi[lower-alpha 8] - Hanuno'o - Notes ↑ The middle "Kushana" form of Brahmi is a later style that emerged as Brahmi scripts were beginning to proliferate. Gupta Brahmi was definitely a stylistic descendant from Kushana, but other Brahmi-derived scripts may have descended from earlier forms. ↑ Tocharian is probably derived from the middle period "Kushana" form of Brahmi, although artifacts from that time are not plentiful enough to establish a definite succession. ↑ Pyu and Old Mon are probably the precursors of the Burmese script, and may be derived from either the Pallava or Kadamba script ↑ May also be derived from Devangari (see bottom left of table) ↑ The Origin of Hangul from 'Phags-pa is one of limited influence, inspiring at most a few basic letter shapes. Hangul does not function as an Indic abugida. ↑ Although the basic letter forms of the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics were derived from handwritten Devanagari letters, this abugida indicates vowel sounds by rotations of the letter form, rather than the use of vowel diacritics as is standard in Indic abugidas. ↑ May also be derived from Ranjana (see above) ↑ Masaram Gondi acts as an Indic abugida, but its letterforms were not derived from any single precursor script.

Character encodings of Ḷ

Most Indic scripts are encoded in the Unicode Standard, and as such the letter Ḷ in those scripts can be represented in plain text with unique codepoint. Ḷ from several modern-use scripts can also be found in legacy encodings, such as ISCII.

Character information

Preview					ఌ		ଌ		ಌ		ഌ		ઌ
Unicode name	DEVANAGARI LETTER VOCALIC L		BENGALI LETTER VOCALIC L		TELUGU LETTER VOCALIC L		ORIYA LETTER VOCALIC L		KANNADA LETTER VOCALIC L		MALAYALAM LETTER VOCALIC L		GUJARATI LETTER VOCALIC L
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2316	U+090C	2444	U+098C	3084	U+0C0C	2828	U+0B0C	3212	U+0C8C	3340	U+0D0C	2700	U+0A8C
UTF-8	224 164 140	E0 A4 8C	224 166 140	E0 A6 8C	224 176 140	E0 B0 8C	224 172 140	E0 AC 8C	224 178 140	E0 B2 8C	224 180 140	E0 B4 8C	224 170 140	E0 AA 8C
Numeric character reference	ऌ	ऌ	ঌ	ঌ	ఌ	ఌ	ଌ	ଌ	ಌ	ಌ	ഌ	ഌ	ઌ	ઌ
ISCII

Character information

Preview	Ashoka Kushana Gupta				𑌌
Unicode name	BRAHMI LETTER VOCALIC L		SIDDHAM LETTER VOCALIC L		GRANTHA LETTER VOCALIC L
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	69645	U+1100D	71048	U+11588	70412	U+1130C
UTF-8	240 145 128 141	F0 91 80 8D	240 145 150 136	F0 91 96 88	240 145 140 140	F0 91 8C 8C
UTF-16	55300 56333	D804 DC0D	55301 56712	D805 DD88	55300 57100	D804 DF0C
Numeric character reference	𑀍	𑀍	𑖈	𑖈	𑌌	𑌌

References