Л is el, the letter for the alveolar lateral approximant /l/. In Russian cursive it is one of six lowercase letters built from one and the same element, which the source names as a documented source of ambiguity.
Looks like м (Em)
The source on Russian cursive lists both л and м among the lowercase letters that consist, entirely or in part, of one identical element, and names Л and М among the letters whose cursive similarity can pose a challenge. Its worked example is the pair волшебник, magician, and домик, little house, in which the combinations лш and ми are written identically. No shape-level tell is offered: the source states that such combinations cannot be unambiguously deciphered without knowing the language or without broader context. For an older document the practical method comes from the account of skoropis — compare the unclear place with parts of the same text you have already read, since each scribe had his own peculiarities.
- Printed
- Л л
- Name
- эль (el)
- Transliteration
- l
- IPA
- /l/
- Position
- 13 of 33
Another look-alike
Looks like и (I)
И and Л are both in the group the cursive source names as similar in handwriting, along with М, Ш and Щ. The source gives мщу, I avenge, and лицу, the dative of лицо, face, as words that become absolutely identical in their cursive form, and лишишь, you will deprive, as a word made almost entirely of the shared element. Again there is no distinguishing stroke to look for: the reading has to come from the surrounding words and from the sense of the passage, and in an old hand from other places in the same document where the same scribe wrote the word more clearly.
History
Л, named el, is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the alveolar lateral approximant /l/, and its article adds that in Slavic languages the sound may be either palatalized or slightly velarized, without giving separate phonetic symbols for those two realizations.
In handwriting, л is one of the letters that genuinely slow a reader down, and the source on Russian cursive says so directly. Several lowercase cursive letters consist, entirely or in part, of an element identical to the dotless Latin cursive letter ı, to the cursive Greek letter ι, or to half of the cursive letter u; the six named are и, л, м, ш, щ and ы. Certain combinations of these letters therefore cannot be unambiguously deciphered without knowing the language or without broader context. In волшебник, magician, and домик, little house, the combinations лш and ми are written identically; the word лишишь, you will deprive, consists almost exclusively of these elements; and мщу, I avenge, and лицу, the dative of лицо, face, become absolutely identical in their cursive form. The same source notes that words may pose a challenge because of the similarities between Ш, Щ, И, Л and М in cursive.
Russian cursive itself was developed during the 18th century on the base of skoropis, the rapid or running script that was the 14th to 17th century chancery hand of the earlier Cyrillic bookhands called ustav and poluustav, and it became the handwritten counterpart of the civil, or Petrine, printed script of books.
For older documents written in skoropis, the account of that hand gives the practical remedy. Each scribe had his own handwriting and individual peculiarities in writing letters and grouping them, so correct reading requires comparing vague places with already read parts of the same text, a skill acquired mainly from practice.
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The history of Russian cursive
1708 — present
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