This article is about the Cyrillic letter. For its Latin-script equivalent, see
Lj (digraph) .
Cyrillic letter
Cyrillic letter Lje Phonetic usage: [ʎ]
Lje (Љ љ; italics: Љ љ ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script .
The letter Lje in serif and italic styles
Lje represents a palatal lateral /ʎ/ , a sound similar (but not identical) to the palatalized alveolar lateral , which is in some languages represented by the digraph ⟨ль⟩ and pronounced /lʲ/ like the ⟨ll⟩ in "mill ion". Compare Latvian ⟨ļ⟩, Slovak ⟨ľ⟩, Portuguese ⟨lh⟩, Spanish ⟨ll⟩ and Italian ⟨gl⟩.
Lje is a ligature of ⟨л ⟩ and ⟨ь ⟩.[1] It was invented by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić for use in his 1818 dictionary, replacing the earlier digraph ⟨ль⟩.[1] It corresponds to the digraph ⟨Lj ⟩ in Gaj's Latin alphabet for Serbo-Croatian .[1]
It is today used in Macedonian , variants of Serbo-Croatian when written in Cyrillic (Bosnian , Montenegrin and Serbian ), and Itelmen .
It was also once used in the Udege language , and in the Lithuanian Cyrillic alphabet .
Lje is commonly transliterated as lj but it can also be transliterated as ľ , or ļ .
Related letters and other similar characters
Computing codes
References
^ a b c Maretić, Tomislav. Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika . 1899.
External links
The dictionary definition of Љ at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of љ at Wiktionary
Audio samples of the letter Lje