Ñ
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ñ (lower case ñ) is a letter of the modern Roman alphabet formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is most notably used in the Spanish alphabet and Filipino alphabet, where it represents a palatal nasal (IPA: [ɲ]).
Unlike many other alphabets that use diacritic marks (such as ü in Astur-Leonese), in Spanish, Galician and Filipino, Ñ is considered a letter in its own right, with its own name (eñe) and its own place in the alphabet (after N).
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[edit] History
Historically, "ñ" arose as a scribal abbreviation of “nn”: the tilde was shorthand for the second "n", written over the first. For example, the Spanish word año (year) is derived from Latin ANNVS.
Already in medieval Latin palæography, the sign that in Spanish came to be called tilde was used on a vowel to indicate a following nasal consonant (n or m) that had been omitted, as in tãtus for tantus or quã for quam. This usage was passed on to other languages using the Latin alphabet, although it was subsequently dropped by most. Spanish and Portuguese retained it though, in some specific cases. In Spanish in particular it was kept to indicate the palatal nasal, the sound that is now spelt as "ñ".
From spellings of anno abbreviated as ãno, as explained above, the tilde was henceforth transferred on 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 didn't derive from an original "nn", as for leña (from Latin "ligna", which didn't involve "nn").
The palatal nasal sound is roughly reminiscent of the consonant cluster /nj/ as in "onion" IPA: [ˈʌnjən]. While this common description is enough to give a rough idea of the sound, it is not precise (it is analogous to giving the pronunciation of the English word "shot" as "syot").
Other Romance languages have different spellings for this phoneme: Italian and French use "gn", a consonant cluster that had evolved to it from Latin also in Spanish (see leña above), whereas Portuguese and Occitan ("nh") or Catalan ("ny") chose other digraphs with no etymological precedent.
Although the letter "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.
[edit] Cross-linguistic usage
In Spanish and some other languages (Aragonese, Asturian, Aymara, Quechua, Guaraní, Filipino, Basque, Galician, and Tetum) whose orthographies were based on that of Spanish, it also represents the palatal nasal. Other Romance languages have this sound as well, written "nh" in Portuguese (piranha, espanhol) and classical Occitan; "gn" in Italian (lasagna, gnocchi) and French (cognac); and "ny" in Catalan (Espanyol).
In Crimean Tatar alphabet, it represents the velar nasal sound, when writing the Tatar language in Latin script.
In the Breton language, it nasalises the preceding vowel as in Jañ /ʒã/ which corresponds to the French name Jean and bears the same pronunciation.
It is used in a number of English words of Spanish origin, such as jalapeño, piña colada, and piñata. The Spanish word cañón, however, became the English word canyon. Until the middle of the 20th century, adapting it to "nn" was more common in English, as in the phrase "Battle of Corunna". Nowadays, it is almost always left alone.
In the orthography for languages of Senegal, ñ represents the palatal nasal. Senegal is unique among countries of West Africa in using this letter.
[edit] Cultural significance
The letter "Ñ" has come to represent the identity of the Spanish language. Latino publisher Bill Teck labeled Hispanic culture and its influence on the United States “Generation Ñ” and started a magazine and later with that name.[1] Organizations like the Instituto Cervantes and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have adopted the letter as its mark for Hispanic heritage.
In 1991 a European Community report recommended the repeal of a regulation preventing the sale in Spain of computer products not supporting "all the characteristics of the Spanish writing system", claiming that it was a protectionist measure against the principles of the free market. This would have allowed the distribution of keyboards without an "Ñ" key. The Real Academia Española stated that the matter was a serious attack against the language. Nobel Prize winner in literature Gabriel García Márquez expressed his disdain over the elimination of the eñe by saying: “The 'Ñ' is not an archaeological piece of junk, but just the opposite: a cultural leap of a Romance language that left the others behind in expressing with only one letter a sound that other languages continue to express with two”.[2]
Among other forms of controversy are those pertaining to the anglicization of Spanish surnames. Such personal decisions can be perceived by the Spanish community as denying identity and heritage[citation needed]. The replacement of "ñ" with another letter alters the pronunciation and meaning of a word or name, in the same manner as replacing any letter with a different one would. Peña is a common Spanish surname that is often anglicized into Pena, changing the name into the Spanish word for “embarrassment” and “sorrow”. Another common example: "año" means "year", but "ano" means "anus".
[edit] Computer usage
In HTML character entity reference the codes are Ñ and ñ or Ñ and ñ.
On the Apple Macintosh operating system it can be typed by pressing the [Option] key then typing n followed by either N or n.
To make a lowercase ñ on the Microsoft Windows operating system, hold down the ALT key and press the numbers 164 or 0241 on the numeric keypad (with Num Lock ON). To make an uppercase Ñ, press ALT + 165 or 0209. The Character Map Windows application identifies the letter as "Latin Small/Capital Letter N With Tilde".
Another option is to configure the system to use the US-International keyboard layout, where the ñ can be produced either by Alt Gr + N, or by typing the tilde (~) followed by the letter n.
[edit] Notes
[edit] See also
[edit] Other symbols for the palatal nasal
[edit] Other letters with a tilde
| The ISO basic Latin alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aa | Bb | Cc | Dd | Ee | Ff | Gg | Hh | Ii | Jj | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | Uu | Vv | Ww | Xx | Yy | Zz | |
|
Letter N with diacritics
Letters using tilde sign
history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters |
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