Vocalic Ll: A Place in the Table With Nothing in It

Long vocalic l is the tenth letter of the varnamala and the emptiest place in the whole series. Its short partner is already confined to forms of a single verbal root. The long form does not occur in any attested Sanskrit word at all. It is in the alphabet because the pattern that governs every other vowel requires a long partner for every short one, and the grammarians carried the pattern through to its conclusion rather than stopping where the vocabulary stopped. Whitney's grammar states the position without hedging, noting that the sound is not found in the language.

Recording that plainly is more useful than a description that implies otherwise, and this atlas does not assert a use, a value or a meaning for the letter, because none is attested. What can be said is what the letter is for. The varnamala is a phonetic analysis presented as an ordered table, and a table of that kind is judged partly on whether it is complete: if the system distinguishes vowels by quality and by length, and if a liquid can be a vowel, then the long form of every vocalic liquid has a determinate place whether or not anyone ever pronounced one in a word. The Sanskrit phonetic tradition was systematic in a way that has been recognised since Europeans first encountered it, and this letter is a small monument to that systematicity.