Ñ
Eñe | |
---|---|
Ñ ñ | |
Usage | |
Writing system | Latin script |
Type | Alphabetic |
Language of origin | Spanish language |
Phonetic usage | [ɲ] [ |
Other | |
Writing direction | Left-to-Right |
ISO basic Latin alphabet |
---|
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz |
Ñ, or ñ (
Unlike many other letters that use diacritics (such as ⟨ü⟩ in Catalan and Spanish and ⟨ç⟩ in Catalan, French, Portuguese and sometimes in Spanish), ⟨ñ⟩ in Spanish, Galician, Basque, Asturian, Leonese, Guarani and Filipino is considered a letter in its own right, has its own name (Spanish: eñe), and its own place in the alphabet (after ⟨n⟩). Historically, it came from a superscript abbreviation for a doubled ⟨n⟩. Its alphabetical independence is similar to the Germanic ⟨w⟩, which came from a doubled ⟨v⟩.
History
Historically, ⟨ñ⟩ arose as a
Already in
From spellings of anno abbreviated as año, as explained above, the tilde was thenceforth transferred to the ⟨n⟩ and kept as a useful expedient to indicate the new palatal nasal sound that Spanish had developed in that position: año. The sign was also adopted for the same palatal nasal in all other cases, even when it did not derive from an original ⟨nn⟩, as in leña (from Latin ligna) or señor (from Latin SENIOR).
Other Romance languages have different spellings for this sound: Italian and French use ⟨gn⟩, a consonant cluster that had evolved from Latin, whereas Occitan and Portuguese chose ⟨nh⟩ and Catalan ⟨ny⟩ even though these digraphs had no etymological precedent.
When Morse code was extended to cover languages other than English, a sequence ( — — · — — ) was allotted for this character.
Although ⟨ñ⟩ is used by other languages whose spellings were influenced by Spanish, it has recently been chosen to represent the identity of the Spanish language, especially as a result of the battle against its obliteration from computer keyboards by an English-led industry.[4]
Cross-linguistic usage
In Spanish it represents a
It also represents a palatal nasal in Galician and Uruguayan Portuguese.
In
In
It is also used to represent the
In the Breton language, it nasalises the preceding vowel, as in Jañ /ʒã/, which corresponds to the French name Jean and has the same pronunciation.
It is used in a number of
In
]Cultural significance
⟨ñ⟩ has come to represent the identity of the Spanish language. Latin publisher Bill Teck labeled Hispanic culture and its influence on the United States "Generation Ñ" and later started a magazine with that name.[6] Organizations such as the Instituto Cervantes and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have adopted the letter as their mark for Hispanic heritage. It was used in the Spanish Republican Air Force for aircraft identification. The circumstances surrounding the crash of serial 'Ñ' Potez 540 plane that was shot down over the Sierra de Gúdar range of the Sistema Ibérico near Valdelinares inspired French writer André Malraux to write the novel L'Espoir (1937), translated into English as Man's Hope and made into the movie named Espoir: Sierra de Teruel.[7]
In 1991, a
Among other forms of controversy are those pertaining to the anglicization of
When
Since 2011, CNN's Spanish-language news channel incorporates a new logo wherein a tilde is placed over both ⟨n⟩.
Another news channel,
As part of April Fool's Day, in 2013, Puerto Rican linguistics professor Aida Vergne[8] penned a mock newspaper article stating that the Royal Spanish Academy had opted to eliminate ⟨ñ⟩ from Spanish, instead being replaced by the original ⟨nn⟩ in Old Spanish.[9] As the Academy had previously eliminated letters such as ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩,[10][11] such an allegation was taken seriously and occasionally the Academy has to resort to deny and clarify the allegation.[12]
The Google Doodle for 23 April 2021 celebrated ⟨ñ⟩ as part of UN Spanish Language Day.[13][14]
Computer usage
Preview | Ñ | ñ | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE | LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE | ||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 209 | U+00D1 | 241 | U+00F1 |
UTF-8 | 195 145 | C3 91 | 195 177 | C3 B1 |
Numeric character reference | Ñ |
Ñ |
ñ |
ñ |
Named character reference | Ñ | ñ |
In Unicode ⟨Ñ⟩ has the code U+00D1 (decimal 209) while ⟨ñ⟩ has the code U+00F1 (decimal 241). Additionally, they can be generated by typing N or n followed by a combining tilde modifier, ̃, U+0303, decimal 771.
In
Ñ
and ñ
or Ñ
and ñ
.
⟨ñ⟩ has its own key in the Spanish and Latin American keyboard layouts (see the corresponding sections at keyboard layout and Tilde#Role of mechanical typewriters). The following instructions apply only to English-language keyboards.
On Android devices, holding N or n down on the keyboard makes entry of ⟨Ñ⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩ possible.
On
On the
The lowercase ⟨ñ⟩ can be made in the Microsoft Windows operating system by typing Alt+164 or Alt+0241 on the numeric keypad (with Num Lock turned on);[15] the uppercase ⟨Ñ⟩ can be made with Alt+165 or Alt+0209. Character Map in Windows identifies the letter as "Latin Small/Capital Letter N With Tilde". A soft (not physical) Spanish-language keyboard is easily installed in Windows.
In Microsoft Word, ⟨ñ⟩ can be typed by pressing Control-Shift-Tilde (⟨~⟩) and then an ⟨n⟩.
On Linux it can be created by pressing Ctrl+Shift+U and then typing '00d1' or '00f1', followed by space or Ctrl to end the character code input. This produces ⟨Ñ⟩ or ⟨ñ⟩.
Another option (for any operating system) is to configure the system to use the
Yet another option is to use a compose key (hardware-based or software-emulated). Pressing the compose key, then ⟨~⟩, and then ⟨n⟩ results in ⟨ñ⟩. A capital ⟨N⟩ can be substituted to produce ⟨Ñ⟩, and in most cases the order of ⟨~⟩ and ⟨ñ⟩ can be reversed.
Use in URLs
⟨ñ⟩ may be used in internationalized domain names, but it will have to be converted from Unicode to ASCII using punycode during the registration process (i.e. from www.piñata.com to www.xn--piata-pta.com).[16]
In
%C3%91
, and ⟨ñ⟩ by %C3%B1
. This is not needed for newer browsers. The hex digits represent the UTF-8See also
Other symbols for the palatal nasal
- Gn (digraph)
- Nh (digraph)
- Nj (letter)
- Ny (digraph)
- Ɲ
- Ń
- Њ
- Ň
- ɲ (IPA symbol)
Other letters with a tilde
References
- Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española(ASALE). Retrieved 23 April 2021.
- ^ Buitrago, A., Torijano, J. A.: "Diccionario del origen de las palabras". Espasa Calpe, S. A., Madrid, 1998. (in Spanish)
- ^ "tilde". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ a b "El Triunfo De La Ñ – Afirmación De Hispanoamerica | Blog De Luis Durán Rojo". Blog.pucp.edu.pe. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
- ^ "Eñe Para English". Eñe Para English. Society for the Advancement of Spanish Letters in the Anglo Americas. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ^ "Generation-Ñ". Generation-n.com. Archived from the original on 24 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ Forging Man's Fate in Spain, The Nation, 20 March 1937
- ISSN 1043-7614. Archived from the originalon 18 January 2021. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ^ Vergne, Aida (1 April 2013). "La Real Academia de la Lengua Española elimina la ñ del alfabeto" [The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language eliminates the ñ from the alphabet]. Metro PR (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 15 June 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ISSN 2165-1736. Archived from the originalon 11 March 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ISSN 1553-8095. Archived from the originalon 4 January 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ^ "Noticias falsas, ¿también sobre nuestro idioma?" [Fake news, also about our language?]. Medium (in Spanish). 23 June 2020. Archived from the original on 17 January 2021. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ^ "Celebrating the Letter Ñ". www.google.com. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
- ^ Musil, Steven. "Google Doodle celebrates the Spanish letter Ñ". CNET. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
- ^ Note that this depends on locale. E.g. will generate ⟨ń⟩ in some eastern European locales, and there is no alternative keystroke for ⟨ñ⟩ in these locales. The same applies to uppercase ⟨Ñ⟩.
- ^ "Verisign IDN Conversion Tool". 4 March 2016. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
External links
- Media related to Ñ at Wikimedia Commons