Lamedh

← Kaph Lamedh Mem →
Phoenician	𐤋
Hebrew	ל
Aramaic	𐡋
Syriac	ܠ
Arabic	ل
Phonemic representation	l,ɫ
Position in alphabet	12
Numerical value	30
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Λ
Latin	L
Cyrillic	Л

Lamedhorlamedis the twelfthletterof theSemitic abjads,includingHebrewlāmeḏל,Aramaiclāmaḏ𐡋,Syriaclāmaḏܠ,Arabiclāmل, andPhoenicianlāmd𐤋. Its sound value is[l].

The Phoenician letter gave rise to theGreekLambda(Λ),LatinL,andCyrillicEl(Л).

Origin

An iron cow-goad in theIsrael Museum(lower right, 9th-7th century BC)

The letter is usually considered to have originated from the representation of anox-goad,i.e. a cattle prod, or ashepherd's crook,i.e. apastoral staff.InProto-Semitica goad was called *lamed-.

Arabic lām

Not to be confused withJ,which having a similar looking with the letter lām.

The letter is namedlām.

Orthography

Its form depends on its position in the word:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ل‎	ـل‎	ـلـ‎	لـ‎

Grammatical functions

Lāmhas functions as agrammatical particlewhen used as a prefix:

• Prepositionallām(لام جارة)
• Lāmof ownership (لام المُلك)
• Lāmof association (لام الاختصاص)
• Lāmof purpose (لام التعليل)
• Lāmof absolute negation (لام الجحود)
• Imperativelām(لام الأمر)
• Lāmof affirmative emphasis (لام التوكيد)

Lām-kasra(لـِ,/li/) is essentially aprepositionmeaning 'to' or 'for', as inلِوالديliwālidī,'for my father'. In this usage, it has become concatenated with other words to form new constructions often treated as independent words: for instance,لِماذاlimāḏā,meaning 'why?', is derived fromلـِliandماذاmāḏā,meaning 'what?' thus getting 'for what?'. A semantically equivalent construction is found in mostRomance languages,e.g.Frenchpourquoi,Spanishpor qué,andItalianperché(thoughchéis an archaism and not in current use).

The other construction,lām-fatḥa(لَـ/la/) is used as an emphatic particle in very formal Arabic and in certain fixed constructions, such asلَقدlaqad(itself an emphatic particle for past-tense verbs) and in theconditionalstructureلو...لَـlaw...la,effectively one of the forms of 'if...then...'.

Hebrew lamed

Orthographicvariants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ל	ל	ל

Hebrew spelling:לָמֶד

Pronunciation

Lamed transcribes as analveolar lateral approximant/l/.

Significance

Lamed ingematriarepresents the number 30.

With the letterVavit refers to theLamedvavniks,the 36 righteous people who save the world from destruction.

As an abbreviation, it can stand for litre. Also, a sign on a car with a Lamed on it means that the driver is a student of driving (the Lamed stands forlomed,learner). It is also used as theElectoral symbolfor theYisrael Beiteinuparty.

As a prefix, it can have two purposes:

• It can be attached to verb roots, designating the infinitive (Dabermeans "speak",Ledabermeans to speak).
• It can also act as a preposition meaning "to" or "for".

Character encodings

Character information

Preview	ל		ل		ܠ		ࠋ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER LAMED		ARABIC LETTER LAM		SYRIAC LETTER LAMADH		SAMARITAN LETTER LABAT
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1500	U+05DC	1604	U+0644	1824	U+0720	2059	U+080B
UTF-8	215 156	D7 9C	217 132	D9 84	220 160	DC A0	224 160 139	E0 A0 8B
Numeric character reference	ל	ל	ل	ل	ܠ	ܠ	ࠋ	ࠋ

Character information

Preview	𐎍		𐡋		𐤋
Unicode name	UGARITIC LETTER LAMDA		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER LAMEDH		PHOENICIAN LETTER LEMDA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	66445	U+1038D	67659	U+1084B	67851	U+1090B
UTF-8	240 144 142 141	F0 90 8E 8D	240 144 161 139	F0 90 A1 8B	240 144 164 139	F0 90 A4 8B
UTF-16	55296 57229	D800 DF8D	55298 56395	D802 DC4B	55298 56587	D802 DD0B
Numeric character reference	𐎍	𐎍	𐡋	𐡋	𐤋	𐤋

Variants:

• U+08A6ࢦARABIC LETTER LAM WITH DOUBLE BAR