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Lj (lj in
lower case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
) is a letter present in some
Slavic language The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ea ...
s, such as the Latin version of Serbo-Croatian and in romanised Macedonian, where it represents a palatal lateral approximant . For example, the word ' is pronounced . Most languages containing the letter in the alphabet are phonemic, which means that every symbol represents one sound, and is always pronounced the same way. In this case, joining the letters '' L'' and '' J'' creates a new letter or a sound. The digraph is treated as a single letter, and therefore it has its own place in the
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a sy ...
, takes up only one space in crossword puzzles and is written in line in vertical text. However, it is not found on standard computer keyboards. Like its
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
counterpart, the
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
has a specific symbol for the same sound: Љ. In sentence case, only ''L'' is capitalized. The same sound appears in Italian spelled with , in some variants of Spanish and Catalan as , in Portuguese as , in some Hungarian dialects as and in Latvian as . In
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech ...
and Slovak, it is often transcribed as (it is used more frequently on the latter language).
Ljudevit Gaj Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement. Biography Origin He was born ...
first proposed this digraph in 1835.


See also

* Љ, the Cyrillic version of Lj *
Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Ser ...


References


External links


Audio samples
of the letter ''LJ'' {{Latin script Latin-script digraphs Serbo-Croatian language