The character ਲ਼ (ḷa), the only character not representing a fricative consonant, was only recently officially added to the Gurmukhī alphabet. It was not a part of the traditional orthography, as the distinctive phonological difference between /lə/ and /ɭə/, while both native sounds, was not reflected in the script, and its inclusion is still not currently universal. Previous usage of another glyph to represent this sound, [ਲ੍ਰ], has also been attested. The letters ਲ਼ ḷa, like ਙ ṅ, ਙ ṅ, ਣ ṇ, and ੜ ṛ, do not occur word-initially, except in some cases their names.
The character ਲ਼ (ḷa), the only character not representing a fricative consonant, was only recently officially added to the Gurmukhī alphabet. It was not a part of the traditional orthography, as the distinctive phonological difference between /lə/ and /ɭə/ while both native sounds, was not reflected in the script, and its inclusion is still not currently universal. Previous usage of another glyph to represent this sound, [ਲ੍ਰ], has also been attested. The letters ਲ਼ ḷa, like ਙ ṅ, ਙ ṅ, ਣ ṇ, and ੜ ṛ, do not occur word-initially, except in some cases their names.