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Ly is a digraph of the Latin alphabet, used in Hungarian.

Hungarian language
Hungarian alphabet
Alphabet
ő ű cs dz dzs gy ly ny sz ty zs
Grammar
Noun phrases Verbs T–V distinction
History
Phonological history
Other features
Phonetics and phonology Vowel harmony Orthography Old Hungarian script Hungarian Braille Hungarian names
Hungarian and English
Hungarian pronunciation of English English words from Hungarian
Regulatory body
v t e

Usage

Ly is the twentieth letter of the Hungarian alphabet. Its Hungarian name is elipszilon /ɛlːipsilon/. Now, it can represent the same phoneme /j/ (palatal approximant) as the Hungarian letter j, but historically, it represented the different phoneme /ʎ/ (palatal lateral approximant).

It is used this way only in Hungarian. In Hungarian, even if two characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact.

The combination lj (considered two separate letters, L and J) is also common in Hungarian and is even pronounced by many speakers. However, even it is sometimes subject to the same reduction to /j/ that ly has been, mainly if it is at the end of a word.

History

Originally, the digraph letter ly was used to represent the palatal lateral /ʎ/, just as the digraph letter ny is still used to represent the palatal nasal /ɲ/. However, in the eastern dialects as well as in the standard dialect, the phoneme /ʎ/ lost its lateral feature and merged with /j/ (akin to Spanish yeísmo). The Hungarian letter ly came to be pronounced the same as the Hungarian letter j. In the western dialects, /ʎ/ lost its palatal feature and merged with /l/ (alveolar lateral approximant). In the northern dialects, the phoneme /ʎ/ has been preserved.

The digraph ly was also used for the sound /ʎ/ in Croatian alphabet before Gaj's Latin Alphabet was introduced.

Examples

These examples are Hungarian words that use the letter ly, with the English translation following:

• furulya = flute
• amely = which
• helyi = local
• golyó = ball
• lyuk = hole
• kehely = goblet
• folyó = river

References

1. BENKŐ Loránd; IMRE Samu (ed.): The Hungarian Language. Janua Linguarum, Series Practica, No. 134. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter (1972).
2. Alphabeti Serborum

• Latin-script digraphs
• Hungarian language