The squiggly dash or tilde above the letter Ñ indicates a different pronunciation, also called a palatal “n”. The letter Ñ has a different pronunciation than the letter N.
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Below is more information on how to pronounce the letter Ñ in different words. When you need to pronounce the letter Ñ, you say eñe (pronounced eh-nyeh). The letter Ñ comes after N in the Spanish alphabet. The changes made by the medieval scribes ultimately resulted in a new letter to the Spanish alphabet. You can see from the parchment photo found on Wikipedia that the scribes abbreviated several letters and words. Scribes made these abbreviations to save time and writing space on parchment (medieval paper), which was expensive. Here is a link to the medieval scribe found on Wikipedia showing the numerous scribal abbreviations. Over time, the popularity for using tildes above different letters faded, except the letter Ñ survived. During the 12th century, Spanish scribes (whose job was to copy documents by hand) started using tildes above letters to indicate that the letter was doubled (scribes used ñ for nn and ã for aa). Originally, the old Spanish language used words with two consecutive letters, such as nn. In fact, this tilde above the N makes the letter “Ñ” a separate letter in the Spanish alphabet.īut where did the letter Ñ come from and why do we use it today? The tilde is used to distinguish an “N “from an “Ñ”.
Detailed Information on the Letter Ñ and How to Use ItĪs we discussed above, a squiggly dash or a squiggle above an “N” is called a tilde. Below, we take a deep dive into the letter Ñ’s history, pronunciation, provide examples and discuss the cultural significance. So when you use a regular N or the special Ñ, it is important to understand the difference. We don’t use it every time we have a word with the letter N in Spanish. Ñ is a letter of the alphabet formed by placing a tilde above an uppercase or lowercase N.īut there’s more to simply placing the squiggly dash above an N. What is the squiggle over the letter N in Spanish? The squiggle over the letter Ñ in Spanish is called a tilde (also referred to as a virgulilla in Spanish). After some research on this topic, I decided to write a helpful post to explain the squiggle or squiggly dash over the letter N in Spanish. When I first started learning Spanish, I was confused why there was a squiggle or squiggly dash over the letter N.
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