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ArabicEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
LetterEdit
ل / ل / ل / ل • (lām)
See alsoEdit
- (Arabic script letters) ا (ā), ب (b), ت (t), ث (ṯ), ج (j), ح (ḥ), خ (ḵ), د (d), ذ (ḏ), ر (r), ز (z), س (s), ش (š), ص (ṣ), ض (ḍ), ط (ṭ), ظ (ẓ), ع (ʕ), غ (ḡ), ف (f), ق (q), ك (k), ل (l), م (m), ن (n), ه (h), و (w), ي (y)
- Wikipedia article on the Arabic alphabet
- Search en.wiktionary.org for articles beginning with: ل
SymbolEdit
ل / ل / ل / ل • (lām)
- The twelfth letter in traditional abjad order, which is used in place of numerals for list numbering (abjad numerals). It is preceded by ك (k) and followed by م (m).
Etymology 2Edit
From Proto-Semitic *lV-.
PronunciationEdit
PrepositionEdit
لِـ • (li-)
Usage notesEdit
When لِـ (li-) is followed by the definite article اَلْ (al-, “the”), the alif of the article is dropped from the spelling, resulting in the spelling لِلْ. However, if this would result in three lams in a row, because the first letter following the definite article is also lam, then the lam with sukun is also dropped, resulting in a spelling starting with لِلّـ, with only two lams; for example, لِلَّيْلَة (li-l-layla, “for tonight”), لِلّٰهِ (li-llāhi, “to God”). The pronunciation is entirely regular in all of these cases.
InflectionEdit
| Inflected forms | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base form | لِـ (li-) | ||||
| Personal-pronoun- including forms |
Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
| Masculine | Feminine | Common | Masculine | Feminine | |
| First person | لِي / لِيَ (lī / liya) | لَنَا (lanā) | |||
| Second person | لَكَ (laka) | لَكِ (laki) | لَكُمَا (lakumā) | لَكُمْ (lakum) | لَكُنَّ (lakunna) |
| Third person | لَهُ (lahu) | لَهَا (lahā) | لَهُمَا (lahumā) | لَهُمْ (lahum) | لَهُنَّ (lahunna) |
Derived termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
(via third-person singular masculine form لَهُ (lahu)):
PrepositionEdit
لَـ • (la-)
- Used to express admiration or to call for help
- يَا لَلْعَجَبِ!
- yā la-l-ʕajabi!
- How wonderful!
- يَا لَهُ مِنْ عَالِمِ رَائِعِ!
- yā lahu min ʕālimi rāʔiʕi!
- What a wonderful world!
Usage notesEdit
It is often used in the form يَا لَهُ [مِنْ] ..., that is, يَا لَـ followed by an enclitic pronoun that does not refer to any previous noun. Rather the pronoun refers to what follows it, with an optional مِنْ in the middle.[1]
InflectionEdit
| Inflected forms | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base form | لَـ (la-) | ||||
| Personal-pronoun- including forms |
Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
| Masculine | Feminine | Common | Masculine | Feminine | |
| First person | لِي / لِيَ (lī / liya) | لَنَا (lanā) | |||
| Second person | لَكَ (laka) | لَكِ (laki) | لَكُمَا (lakumā) | لَكُمْ (lakum) | لَكُنَّ (lakunna) |
| Third person | لَهُ (lahu) | لَهَا (lahā) | لَهُمَا (lahumā) | لَهُمْ (lahum) | لَهُنَّ (lahunna) |
ConjunctionEdit
لِـ • (li-)
- to, in order to: followed by the subjunctive mood
- دَخَلْتُ ٱلْمَطْبَخَ لِأَشْرَبَ مَاءً.
- daḵaltu l-maṭbaḵa li-ʔašraba māʔan.
- I entered the kitchen to drink water.
- used with the verbs أَرَادَ (ʔarāda) and أَمَرَ (ʔamara)
-
- إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ اللّٰهُ لِيُذُهِبَ عَنْكُمُ الرِّجْسَ
- ʔinnamā yurīdu llāhu liyuḏuhiba ʕankumu r-rijsa
- (please add an English translation of this quote)
-
- only to (لَامُ الْعَاقِبَة (lāmu l-ʕāqiba))
-
- فَالْتَقَطَهُ آلُ فِرْعَوْنَ لِيَكُونَ لَهُمْ عَدُوًّا وَحَزَنًا
- fāltaqaṭahu ʾālu firʿawna li-yakūna lahum ʿaduwwan wa-ḥazanan
- And so the family of the Pharaoh picked him up, only to become an enemy and a grief.
-
SynonymsEdit
- لِأَنْ (liʔan)
Etymology 3Edit
PronunciationEdit
ParticleEdit
لِـ • (li-)
- Used to introduce an imperative with a jussive verb; let
- 9th century, Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj, quoting Muhammad, “كتاب الحج”, in Sahih Muslim:
- لِتَأْخُذُوا مَنَاسِكَكُمْ فَإِنِّي لَا أَدْرِي لَعَلِّي لَا أَحُجُّ بَعْدَ حَجَّتِي هَذِهِ
- litaʔḵuḏū manāsikakum faʔinnī lā ʔadrī laʕallī lā ʔaḥujju baʕda ḥajjatī haḏihi
- (please add an English translation of this quote)
-
- وَقُلِ ٱلْحَقُّ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ فَمَنْ شَاءَ فَلْيُؤْمِنْ وَمَنْ شَاءَ فَلْيَكْفُرْ
- waquli l-ḥaqqu min rabbikum faman šāʔa falyuʔmin waman šāʔa falyakfur
- And say, "The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills, let him believe; and whoever wills, let him disbelieve."
Etymology 4Edit
PronunciationEdit
ParticleEdit
لَـ • (la-)
- (intensifying particle) truly, verily, certainly, surely
-
- وَإِنَّ أَوْهَنَ ٱلْبُيُوتِ لَبَيْتُ ٱلْعَنْكَبُوتِ
- wa-ʾinna ʾawhana l-buyūti la-baytu l-ʿankabūti
- And indeed, the weakest of homes is the home of the spider,
-
Usage notesEdit
Frequently used after إِنَّ (ʔinna).
Derived termsEdit
- لَقَدْ (laqad)
Etymology 5Edit
PronunciationEdit
VerbEdit
- second-person masculine singular active imperative of وَلِيَ (waliya)
ReferencesEdit
- Wehr, Hans (1979), “ل”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN
- ^ de Sacy, Silvestre (1831) Grammaire arabe[1] (in French), volume 1, pages 475-476
BaltiEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل (l)
- The thirty-seventh letter of the Balti alphabet, written in the Perso-Arabic script
BurushaskiEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل (l)
- The thirty-eighth letter of the Burushaski alphabet, written in the Perso-Arabic script
KashmiriEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل • (l)
- The thirty-sixth letter of the traditional alphabet chart of Kashmiri.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
KazakhEdit
| Cyrillic | Л, л (L, l) |
|---|---|
| Arabic | ل |
| Latin |
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل • (l)
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
KhowarEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل (lām)
- The thirty-ninth and first lam letter of the Khowar abjad.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
MalayEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل / ل / ل / ل
- The twenty-seventh letter of the Malay alphabet, written in the Arabic script.
See alsoEdit
North Levantine ArabicEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Arabic لِ (li, “to, for, towards”). The initial syllable in suffixed forms is likely a contemporary development rather than influence from Arabic إِلَى (ʔilā, “to, for, towards”), whose initial glottal stop would have naturally been lost as seen below; instead, compare the development of the initial syllable in إِجَا (ʾija, “to come”).
PrepositionEdit
ل • (la)
Usage notesEdit
- Personal suffixes are attached to the stem ʾil-: إلي (ʾili, “to me”), إلك (ʾilak, “to you”), etc. Often, however, reduplicated forms from the stem laʾil- are used, thus لإلي (laʾili), لإلك (laʾilak).
SynonymsEdit
ConjunctionEdit
ل • (la)
Usage notesEdit
SynonymsEdit
- كرمال (kirmāl) and synonyms there.
SuffixEdit
ـلـ • (-l-, -ill-)
- to, for; dative suffix
- صِرت قَايلِتلَك مِليوْن مَرَّة مَا تدَعْوِسْلِي عَالأرض البَعدنَا منَضّفِينو!
- ṣirt ʾāylitlak milyōn marra ma tdaʿwisli ʿal-ʾarḍ l-baʿdna mnaḍḍfīno!
- I've told you a million times, don't step all over the floor if we've just cleaned it!
- (literally, “I've said to you a million times, don't step [for] me all over the floor that we've just cleaned!”)
Usage notesEdit
- Immediately followed by a personal suffix. ل (-l-) almost-always avoids creating superheavy syllables before itself.
- Superheavy syllables CVVC are avoided by contracting the long vowel, such as when attaching to a hollow verb. In particular, long ā, even when raised to ē as in Lebanon and urban Syria, always contracts to a rather than to i — and North Levantine varieties have overwhelmingly merged short u and short i into i, meaning that ū and ī also both contract into i.
- Some speakers extend this to the plural ending -īn of active participles.
- قَايلِين (ʾāylīn, “have said”, pl) ⇒ قَايلِينلي (ʾāylīnli) or قَايلِنلي (ʾāylinli, “have told me”, plural, literally “have said to me”).
- The suffix avoids all other kinds of heavy syllables by attaching to the base as either -ill- or -all-. The -all- ending is used on third-person masculine singular Form I biliteral verbs in the past tense, and the -ill- ending everywhere else.
- حَطّ (ḥaṭṭ, “he set down”, transitive) ⇒ حَطَّلِّي (ḥaṭṭalli, “he set down for me”, transitive)
- مشِيت (mšīt, “you walked”, masculine) ⇒ مشِيتِلَّك (mšītilli, “you walked to me; you walked for me”)
- كَتَبت (katabt, “you wrote”, masculine) ⇒ كَتَبتِلِّي (katabtilli, “you wrote to me; you wrote for me”)
- In other cases, i.e. in environments where sticking -l- directly onto the end of the base would not create a final heavy syllable, it attaches as is.
- كَتَبِت (katabit, “she wrote”) ⇒ كَتَبَِتلِي (katabatli, katabitli, “she wrote to me; she wrote for me”)
- Unlike in Egyptian Arabic, the Levantine form of this suffix can only attach to the base word, not to any preceding suffixes. This means it bumps any object suffixes off into their own words.
- حَطَّيْناه (ḥaṭṭaynḗ, “we put it down”) ⇒ حَطَّيْنالِك ياه، حَطَّيْنالِك هو (ḥaṭṭaynēlik yē, ḥaṭṭaynēlik huwwe, “we put it down for you”)
- This suffix isn't limited to appearing on verbs and their active participles. It can also attach to elatives, passive participles of verbs, and even other parts of speech.
- It only rarely appears on other parts of speech, and when it does, it's the result of an originally-unbound لَ (la, “to, for”) merging into a word it commonly appears with. That's the case with بَعدِلّـ (baʿdill-, “(of time) remaining for”), from بَعْد (baʿd, “still; remaining”, adverb, literally “[there is] still [time]”) + لـ (l-, “for; belonging to”).
- It's also uncommon for this suffix to attach to passive participles, which means that passive participles that end in ū will generally contract it into a short u instead of a short i if it's attached to them. Two somewhat-common examples are مَسمُحلـ (masmuḥl-, “permitted for”) and مقَدَّرلـ (mʾaddarl-, “fated for, preordained for”).
- It can only attach to elatives to refer to the better or best of a set of choices, like أَريَحَلِي (ʾaryaḥli, “more/most comfortable for me”) and أَنضَفلنَا (ʾanḍaflna, “cleaner/cleanest for us”). It's generally invalid to use it on an elative that describes a negative trait, like *أَوْسَخلَك (*ʾawsaḵlak, “dirtier/dirtiest for you”) or *أصعَبلَك (ʾaṣʿablak, “more/most difficult for you”), because it imparts a positive slant on the trait the elative describes. In contrast, عَلَى (ʿala, “in relation to”) can construe elatives no matter what they mean: أَهيَن علَيك (ʾahyan ʿlēk, “easier for you”) is synonymous with أَهيَنلَك (ʾahyanlak, “easier for you”), but the only valid antonym is أَصعَب علَيك (ʾaṣʿab ʿlēk, “more/most difficult for you”, literally “more/most difficult in relation to you”) instead of *أصعَبلَك (ʾaṣʿablak, “more/most difficult for you”).
Etymology 2Edit
From Arabic إِلَى (ʔilā, “to, for, toward”).
PrepositionEdit
ل • (la)
Usage notesEdit
- Its suffix-base form is lay-, similarly to عَلَى (ʿala). This distinguishes it from the preposition above when constructed with a personal suffix.
- For the most part, only used in the phrases مِنُّو لَيه (minno lē, “in its entirety; altogether”, literally “from it to it”), قِدِر لَ (ʾidir la, “to be able to handle”, literally “to be able toward”), فِيه لَ (fī la, “can handle”, literally “can toward”), and إِجَا لَ (ʾija la, “to come for”). However, it is also uncommonly used to construe other verbs of motion as a generalized sense of the last phrase, where it retains the sense of intending “to apprehend or cause harm” suggested by come for:
- وَاللَّه حَإِضهَر لَيك
- waḷḷa ḥaʾiḍhar lēk
- I swear, I'm going to come out there and come for you.
- (literally, “I swear I'm going to come out toward you”)
PashtoEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل • (lâm)
- The thirty-fourth letter of the Pashto alphabet.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
PersianEdit
PronunciationEdit
Audio (file)
LetterEdit
ل / لـ / ـلـ / ـل • (lâm)
- The twenty-seventh letter of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. It is preceded by گ and followed by م. Its name is لام.
SindhiEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل (lām)
- The forty-sixth letter of the Sindhi abjad.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
South Levantine ArabicEdit
EtymologyEdit
PrepositionEdit
لـ • (la-)
ConjunctionEdit
لـ • (la-)
SuffixEdit
ـلـ • (-l-, il, -ill-)
- to; for (indirect object suffix with an attached enclitic pronoun)
- Synonym: (detached version for emphasis) إلـ (ʾil-)
Usage notesEdit
- This suffix is attached to a verb expressing the indirect object.
- If the verb ends in a consonant cluster, the "-l-" is geminated and the stress shifts before an enclitic pronoun starting with a vowel.
InflectionEdit
| Inflected forms of ل | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base form | ـلـ (-l-) | ||||
| Personal-pronoun- including forms |
singular | plural | |||
| m | f | ||||
| 1st person | ـلي (-li, -illi) | ـلنا (-lna, -ilna) | |||
| 2nd person | ـلك (-lak, -illak) | ـلك (-lek, -illek) | ـلكم (-lkom, ilkom) | ||
| 3rd person | ـله (-lo, -illo) | ـلها (-lha, -ilha) | ـلهم (-lhom, ihom) | ||
| Examples | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel | One consonant | Two consonants | ||
| Example | حكى (ḥáka, “he talked”) | كتب (kátab, “he wrote”) | كتبت (katábt, “I/you wrote”) | |
| 1st | singular | حكالي (ḥakā-li) | كتبلي (katáb-li) | كتبتلي (katabt-ílli) |
| plural | حكالنا (ḥakā-lna) | كتبلنا (katab-ílna) | كتبتلنا (katabt-ílna) | |
| 2nd | masculine | حكالك (ḥakā-lak) | كتبلك (katáb-lak) | كتبتلك (katabt-íllak) |
| feminine | حكالك (ḥakā-lek) | كتبلك (katáb-lek) | كتبتلك (katabt-íllek) | |
| plural | حكالكم (ḥakā-lkom) | كتبلكم (katab-ílkom) | كتبتلكم (katabt-ílkom) | |
| 3rd | masculine | حكاله (ḥakā-lo) | كتبله (katáb-lo) | كتبتله (katabt-íllo) |
| feminine | حكالها (ḥakā-lha) | كتبلها (katab-ílha) | كتبتلها (katabt-ílha) | |
| plural | حكالهم (ḥakā-lhom) | كتبلهم (katab-ílhom) | كتبتلهم (katabt-ílhom) | |
UrduEdit
PronunciationEdit
- (letter name): (Standard Urdu) IPA(key): /lɑːm/
- (phoneme): (Standard Urdu) IPA(key): /l/
LetterEdit
ل • (lām)
- The thirtieth letter of the Urdu abjad.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
UyghurEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل • (le)
- The twenty-first letter of the Uyghur alphabet.
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |
See alsoEdit
YorubaEdit
PronunciationEdit
LetterEdit
ل (l)
FormsEdit
| Isolated form | Final form | Medial form | Initial form |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل | ـل | ـلـ | لـ |