Javanese Letter La

It marks an l sound with a built-in vowel.

In Javanese, ꦭ is conventionally read as la; in some words, its built-in vowel sounds like an open o. A vowel sign can change the syllable. The syllable with l plus a reduced, neutral vowel uses the separate letter ꦊ, called nga lelet.

How did Javanese writing develop?

Javanese writing grew through several older scripts.

The origin of the Javanese script reaches back through Brahmi, an ancient South Asian script, and Pallava writing to Kawi, a regional script used from the eighth to fifteenth centuries. Modern Javanese script developed from Kawi in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Old Javanese inscriptions are known by AD 804.

Javanese script wrote royal decrees, land grants, religious texts and literature, as well as Sanskrit, Kawi, Sundanese and Sasak texts on Java and Lombok. By about 1945, Indonesian written in Latin letters had displaced it from much public writing. The traditional Javanese origin legend connects the script with Aji Saka, a culture hero; that story is not a dated record of the script's development.

Why does ꦭ change shape in words?

A shaping engine displays it as a subjoined pasangan.

On its own, ꦭ sits on the line. After a pangkon, the sign that cancels a consonant's built-in vowel, it forms a pasangan: a lower consonant form that closes the preceding syllable and begins a cluster with l.

Unicode text stores the letters and marks in logical order; a Javanese-capable text engine places the pasangan and vowel signs in their visual positions.