KYRIE ELEISON, A-111-son (from the Greek Kyrie dawn, °Lord, have mercy"), an invocation following the Introit of the Mass. It is almost the only part of the liturgy in which the Roman Catholic Church has retained the use of Greek words. Just after the Introit the priest celebrating the Mass and the servers repeat alternately three times "Kyrie eleison,' and then as many times in the same manner uChriste eleison,° and so on alternately. When it is sung the leading singer takes the part of the priest, and the choir that of the servers. The introduction of the Kyrie into the Mass is attributed to Pope Sylvester I, in the beginning of the 4th century.
twelfth letter of the English and most of the other modern European languages. Its definitive form in the Greek alphabet is A, but in very early Grecian, Hebrew and Phcenician monuments it has the form NI or L . Its name in Hebrew and Phcenician is lamed and in Greek lambda, in Arabic lam.
The sound of 1 is produced when the tip of the tongue is brought into contact with the palate behind the upper front teeth, and, with the jaws apart, the breath is emitted. The sound of r is produced in nearly the same way, but in sounding the r the tongue is not in cop tact with the palate and may vibrate. Thus these two letters represent sounds that are much alike. But there are nations that cannot sound the r, as the Chinese and sundry other races; these substitute 1 for r: the technical name for this vice of utterance is lambdacism; the opposite vice is an inability to pronounce I, for which r is substituted, as by the Japanese. In languages whose syllabaries admit both these sounds the two letters are freely interchanged or confounded. In languages belonging to one common family, the Aryan, for example, a word which in one language has r, in another has 1, and vice-versa; examples: Lat. prunes, Eng.
plum; Lat. itImus (elm), Fr. orme. The like is seen m the formation of derivatives within one language. Thus in Latin the adjective termina tion ohs (Eng. al, as in liberal) is changed to axis when the word has already an I; for ex ample : from peculium comes pecu/iaris, from auxi/ium, aux/fit:iris, and vice-versa, r for a like reason is changed to 1: thus from per and lucid:is comes pellucidus, from inter and lectus, intellectus. L is also substituted in one language for n in another; for example: Gr. pneumon (lung), Lat. pulmo. Or d and 1 are inter changed: Gr. Odysseus, Lat. Ulysses; the like is seen in the two Latin words odor and olor; and the Latin lingua was once written dingua, allied to Eng. tongue and Ger. zunge.
In Italian the 1 of Latin words is often changed to i: Lat. planus, plumbum (lead), Ital. Piano, piombo.
In English I is often silent: palm, calm. In French al becomes au; a le becomes au, cheval (horse) plu. chevaux; and the English auburn is from Latin alburnus. In English and most of the other languages 1, whether single or double, has one sound-value only, the same which it has in pale, pallid; but in French some times 11 has a sound resembling that of Ili in million, and like y in meilleur; in Spanish 11 may commence a word, for example: llama (wool), and is classed as a distinct alphabetic character: its sound-value is the same as that of 11 in French. In Welsh, on the other hand, 11 has a most peculiar, indescribable sound, partly 1 and partly a sibilant sh.
L. E. L., the nom-de-plume initials of an English novelist, Letitia Elizabeth Landon (q.v.), later Mrs. Maclean.