El with hook

El with hook (Ԓ ԓ; italics: Ԓ ԓ ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter El (Л л) by adding a hook to the bottom of the right leg.

It is used in Chukchi and, in some publications, in Itelmen and Khanty. In all three of these languages, it represents the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, like the pronunciation of $⟨ll⟩$ in the Welsh language.

El with hook was officially added to the Chukchi alphabet in the late 1980s. The letter was first used in a Chukchi language primer that was published in 1996 (Ԓыгъоравэтԓьэн йиԓыйиԓ), replacing the Cyrillic letter El $⟨Л⟩$ to reduce confusion with the different pronunciation of the Russian letter of the same form.

El with hook is the nineteenth letter of Itelmen, introduced with the new Cyrillic alphabet during 1984–1988. In some publications, it is substituted by El with descender (Ԯ ԯ).

El with hook has been in use in Khanty since 1990. El with hook and El with descender are considered variants of the same letter in Khanty; their use depends on the particular publisher.

Variant forms


The letter has two variant forms: the original one where the hook is like a small comma, and the other where the hook is notably protruded below the baseline.