здрасти! I am learning Bulgarian and have noticed the letter Л sometimes seems to be written like an arrow. Is there a reason for this?
by Trancoso74
здрасти! I am learning Bulgarian and have noticed the letter Л sometimes seems to be written like an arrow. Is there a reason for this?
by Trancoso74
6 comments
It depends on the font you are using
The font you’ve shown renders it as an arrow. [The English Wikipedia page about the letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(Cyrillic)) shows the normal way Bulgarians write the letter in cursive, and also shows some more familiar renders across different fonts, e.g. Reddit’s **Л**.
Reading the page, I just found out the letter is based on the Greek lambda **Λ**, so that probably explains the visual regression.
The one looking like an arrow is actually from the proper [Proper Bulgarian Cyrillic (on the left in this picture)](https://cyrillic.bgweb.bg/img/balgarska-kirilitsa-razlika-s-ruska.png)
Most fonts use the one that looks like a modified п from the russian Cyrillic, but there are a few that incorporate the Bulgarian one. There’s even an initiative to shed some light on the differences. You can read about it here https://cyrillic.bgweb.bg/ .
This being said, it is truly just a different font and it doesn’t really make it wrong or anything. Just a different style.
The proper symbol for the letter “L” is “/\” in Bulgarian. It depends on the font, but if the proper language is set ( ex. bg-BG, not ru-RU which is also cyrillic ) it should be displayed as “/\”. “Л” is the russian Cyrillic letter. It’s also used in Bulgaria interchangeably, so it’s common to see them both. Most people just used to it and don’t really care if it’s “/\” ор “Л”, it’s the same thing.
same letter, different fonts
^o^