  A compact topological space X is spectral if it is sober (i.e., every
irreducible closed set is the closure of a unique singleton) and the compact
open subsets of X form a basis of the topology of X, closed under finite
intersections. Theorem. A topological space X is homeomorphic to the spectrum
of some countable Abelian {\ell}-group with unit (resp., MV-algebra) iff X is
spectral, has a countable basis of open sets, and for any points x and y in the
closure of a singleton {z}, either x is in the closure of {y} or y is in the
closure of {x}. We establish this result by proving that a countable
distributive lattice D with zero is isomorphic to the lattice of all principal
ideals of an Abelian {\ell}-group (we say that D is {\ell}-representable) iff
for all a, b $\in$ D there are x, y $\in$ D such that a $\lor$ b = a $\lor$ y =
b $\lor$ x and x $\land$ y = 0. On the other hand, we construct a
non-{\ell}-representable bounded distributive lattice, of cardinality $\aleph$
1 , with an {\ell}-representable countable L$\infty, \omega$-elementary
sublattice. In particular, there is no characterization, of the class of all
{\ell}-representable distributive lattices, in arbitrary cardinality, by any
class of L$\infty, \omega$ sentences.
