Lamedh

← Kaph Lamedh Mem →
Phoenician	𐤋‎
Hebrew	ל‎
Samaritan	Template:Script/Samaritan
Aramaic	Template:Script/Aramaic
Syriac	ܠTemplate:Script/doc/id-unk
Nabataean	𐢑𐢐Template:Script/doc/id-unk
Arabic	ل‎
South Arabian	𐩡Template:Script/doc/id-unk
Geʽez	ለTemplate:Script/doc/id-unk
North Arabian	𐪁Template:Script/doc/id-unk
Ugaritic	𐎍
Phonemic representation
Position in alphabet	12
Numerical value	30
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Λ
Latin	L
Cyrillic	Л

Lamedh or lamed is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew lāmeḏ ל‎, Aramaic lāmaḏ 𐡋, Syriac lāmaḏ ܠ, Arabic lām ل‎, and Phoenician lāmd 𐤋. Its sound value is [l]. It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪁‎‎‎, South Arabian , and Ge'ez .

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Lambda (Λ), Latin L, and Cyrillic El (Л).

Origin

The letter is usually considered to have originated from the representation of an ox-goad, i.e. a cattle prod, or a shepherd's crook, i.e. a pastoral staff. In Proto-Semitic a goad was called *lamed-.

Arabic lām

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

The letter is named لام .

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

has functions as a grammatical particle when used as a prefix:

• Prepositional ()
• of ownership ()
• of association ()
• of purpose ()
• of absolute negation ()
• Imperative ()
• of affirmative emphasis ()

(, ) is essentially a preposition meaning 'to' or 'for', as in , 'for my father'. In this usage, it has become concatenated with other words to form new constructions often treated as independent words: for instance, , meaning 'why?', is derived from and , meaning 'what?' thus getting 'for what?'. A semantically equivalent construction is found in most Romance languages, e.g. French , Spanish , and Italian (though is an archaism and not in current use).

The other construction, ( ) is used as an emphatic particle in very formal Arabic and in certain fixed constructions, such as (itself an emphatic particle for past-tense verbs) and in the conditional structure , effectively one of the forms of 'if...then...'.

Hebrew lamed

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

Hebrew spelling:

Pronunciation

Lamed transcribes as an alveolar lateral approximant /l/.

Significance

Lamed in gematria represents the number 30.

With the letter Vav it refers to the Lamedvavniks, 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 for , learner). It is also used as the Electoral symbol for the Yisrael Beiteinu party.

As a prefix, it can have two purposes:

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

Syriac lamadh

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ܠ‎‎	ـܠ‎‎	ـܠ‎ـ‎	ܠ‎ـ‎

Character encodings

Variants:

• U+08A6 ࢦ