Ḻa

Ḻa (IAST) or Ḷa (ISO 15919) is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, La is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter 𑀴.

Devanagari Ḻa

Ḻa (ळ) is an additional Devanagari character originally used for an allophone of the voiced retroflex stop in Vedic Sanskrit, and current represents the lateral flap that occurs in Marathi, Konkani, Garhwali, and Rajasthani. + Devanagari ळ with vowel marks Ḻa Ḻā Ḻi Ḻī Ḻu Ḻū Ḻr Ḻr̄ Ḻl Ḻl̄ Ḻe Ḻai Ḻo Ḻau Ḻळळाळिळीळुळूळृळॄळॢळॣळेळैळोळौळ् Conjuncts with ळ

Devanagari exhibits conjunct ligatures, as is common in Indic scripts. In modern Devanagari texts, most conjuncts are formed by reducing the letter shape to fit tightly to the following letter, usually by dropping a character's vertical stem, sometimes referred to as a "half form". Some conjunct clusters are always represented by a true ligature, instead of a shape that can be broken into constituent independent letters. Vertically stacked conjuncts are ubiquitous in older texts, while only a few are still used routinely in modern Devanagari texts. The use of ligatures and vertical conjuncts may vary across languages using the Devanagari script, with Marathi in particular preferring the use of half forms where texts in other languages would show ligatures and vertical stacks. Ligature conjuncts of ळ

Repha र् (r) + ळ (ḻa) gives the ligature rḻa:

Eyelash र्‍ (r) + ळ (ḻa) gives the ligature rḻa:

Telugu Lla

In addition to La (ల), Telugu has a second /l/ consonant Lla (ళ). It is closely related to the Kannada letter ಳ. Most Telugu consonants contain a v-shaped headstroke that is related to the horizontal headline found in other Indic scripts, although headstrokes do not connect adjacent letters in Telugu. The headstroke is normally lost when adding vowel matras.

Malayalam Ḻa

Ḻa (ള) is a consonant of the Malayalam abugida. Like in other Indic scripts, Malayalam consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

Conjuncts of ള

As is common in Indic scripts, Malayalam joins letters together to form conjunct consonant clusters. There are several ways in which conjuncts are formed in Malayalam texts: using a post-base form of a trailing consonant placed under the initial consonant of a conjunct, a combined ligature of two or more consonants joined, a conjoining form that appears as a combining mark on the rest of the conjunct, the use of an explicit candrakkala mark to suppress the inherent "a" vowel, or a special consonant form called a "chillu" letter, representing a bare consonant without the inherent "a" vowel. Texts written with the modern reformed Malayalam orthography, put̪iya lipi, may favor more regular conjunct forms than older texts in paḻaya lipi, due to changes undertaken in the 1970s by the Government of Kerala. ള് (ḻ) + ള (ḻa) gives the ligature ḻḻa:

Odia Ḻa

In addition to ଲ (La), Odia also has a second La character, ଳ (Ḻa). It is descended from the Siddhaṃ letter Ḻa. Like other Odia letters, ଳ has the inherent vowel "a", and takes one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all. + Odia Ḻa with vowel matras Ḻa Ḻā Ḻi Ḻī Ḻu Ḻū Ḻr̥ Ḻr̥̄ Ḻl̥ Ḻl̥̄ Ḻe Ḻai Ḻo Ḻau Ḻ Like the letter ଲ, ଳ generates conjuncts only by subjoining and does not form ligatures.

Comparison of Ḻa The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including La, are related as well. Where multiple characters are shown, the final character is Ḻa, except for Tocharian, New Tai Lue and Tai Viet.

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

References

Conjuncts are identified by IAST transliteration, except aspirated consonants are indicated with a superscript "h" to distinguish from an unaspirated cononant + Ha, and the use of the IPA "ŋ" and "ʃ" instead of the less dinstinctive "ṅ" and "ś".