Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its value is IPA .

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

Origins

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Lamedh is believed to have come from a pictogram of an ox goad or cattle prod. Some have suggested a shepherd's staff.

Hebrew Lamedh

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Pronunciation

Lamedh is pronounced like the English letter L when it occurs before a vowel, the alveolar lateral approximant. Unlike L, however, ל is never pronounced velarised (IPA ^*), i.e. never as in English milk.

Significance

Lamedh 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 Lamedh on it means that the driver is a student of driving (the Lamedh stands for lomed, learner).

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".

Phoenician alphabet | Arabic letters

ל | Lamed (lizherenn) | Lamed | Lámed | Lamed (lettre) | ל | Lamed | Lamed