Divinity Atlas
Lalla's Three Facts Reduce to Two Findings, Not One
Lalla, the thirty third letter of the Gurmukhi painti and the base of one of its six dotted extensions, carries three contested facts. Read individually they are not one dispute restated but two separate findings: how the letter's own rare extension is actually used today, and, separately, a genuine two camp argument over who fixed the script it belongs to.
A Mark Used Inconsistently by Dialect
The dotted extension Lalla carries, writing a retroflex lateral, is the least used and least consistently written of the six dotted extensions outside the painti proper. "The retroflex lateral is distinguished in some Punjabi varieties and merged with plain l in others, so its written mark is used inconsistently. Descriptions differ over whether it should be treated as a standard letter of modern Punjabi orthography or as an optional dialect mark. The atlas records the variation and takes no position."
A Separate Argument Over Who Fixed the Script
The letter's origin period carries a second and entirely different dispute, not about how it is used but about who is responsible for the script existing at all. "Two positions are held and both are current. Sikh tradition, carried in the Sikh reference literature, credits Guru Angad, the second Guru, with the script. Historians of Indic writing hold that the letterforms were already in mercantile use in the Punjab, descended through the Landa mercantile hands from Sharada, and that the Guru ordered, named and fixed an existing repertoire rather than inventing one. The atlas records both and picks neither." Two findings, not one restated: how a mark is used today, and who is credited with the whole script centuries ago.
Where To Read More
- Lalla ਲGurmukhi LettersTwo separate findings: an inconsistently used dialect mark, and a two camp dispute over who fixed the script