Grantha Letter Vocalic LL

It is Grantha’s independent long vocalic-l vowel letter. The scholarly transliteration is ḹ, a vowel articulated as a syllabic l. Use it to preserve a Grantha spelling or transcription; it is not the consonant 𑌲.

Grantha descends from Brahmi and developed in South India as a fuller way to write Sanskrit, whose sounds the Tamil script could not represent as directly. Recognizable Grantha ancestors appear in inscriptions of early Pallava kings from the fourth century CE; the modern script belongs to the period after the thirteenth century CE. Those dates trace the script, not this letter’s individual first appearance.

Grantha was also mixed with Tamil for Sanskrit words and used for Sanskrit passages in Manipravalam, a literary mix of Tamil and Sanskrit. Its history connects to Malayalam too: Malayalam letter vocalic LL, ൡ, is the corresponding independent form in that script.

Why does 𑍡 look different in print?

The attached sign can sit in different places. The separate sign 𑍣 follows a consonant. In contemporary printing, it is placed to the right of its base; some older manuscript forms put it below the consonant. That placement change belongs to the attached sign, not the standalone letter 𑍡.

A font without Grantha coverage may show a blank box or substitute glyph. The character is still 𑍡; a Grantha-supporting font lets it display.