Talk:Ñ

Images

I've taken the following photos to illustrate the letter Ñ. Use them as you see fit.

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— Chameleon 21:20, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hotkey

What is the hotkey to type the ñ on a Windows computer? (CFIF 21:55, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC))

What's a hotkey? — Chameleon 22:06, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think Ctrl-~ followed by n works. Nickptar 22:19, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It probably depends on your keyboard layout. I just hit ñ. — Chameleon 22:31, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Ctrl-~ thing doesn't work for me (CFIF 23:00, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC))

You can try alt-0241. Or, if you are writing in HTML (which works on Wikipedia) you can type in ñ, ñ or ñ and it'll display as ñ. On Wikipedia, you can just click on the ñ in the special characters box below the edit box. Finally, you can select a keymap that includes the letter (for example, choose the keymap for Spain); I use a customised version of that keymap. — Chameleon 08:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hold down alt and hit 164 on the keypad. That's what works for me. (Daniel Hawking (unreg. user) @ 0:12, Aug 14 (UTC))

For uppercase Ñ it's alt + 165

I found that alt + 1701 worked for uppercase Ñ. I'm using a (presumably) Australian keyboard.58.178.113.192 11:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Do your keyboard have the '~' character? Then just press it (possibly holding down the correct CTRL or ALT key) followed by a 'n' or 'N'. On a Swedish keyboard, for instance, the upper key that is to the immediate left of the big enter key gives the ~ character if you press it while holding down the ALT GRAPHICS option key. So press that, release, and then enter a normal 'n' or 'N' and you should see a 'ñ' or 'Ñ' on your screen.

I personally use the ñ key to type the ñ character. 200.127.223.79 (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

"Historically, ñ represented two N's, written as an N with a smaller N, the tilde ~, over it. For example, the Spanish word año (year) is derived from Latin ANNVS."

What?

As it says: the tilde originally was a small lowercase n written on top of the other n. So año was originally written anno, which is clearly from the Latin annus. Jordi·✆ 17:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I removed the second bit of the sentence before I realized (via a picture of Ñ/ that the tilde looked like another N. It's back, and clarified. --Ihope127 01:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Ñ in American keyboards

Maybe ñ should be in American keyboards. 35 millions Americans, whose language is Spanish, and those non-hispanics able to speak it would be able to write in both languages (English and Spanish) without nowadays problems.

This is hardly an issue. There are actually keyboards with the Ñ symbol, as you know, and anyone wishing to use it can purchase one. The Spanish and English keyboards are actually the same, the only difference in them is what is printed on the keys. The difference lies in the software, something you can easily change by selecting a different key layout in any popular operating system. SaulPerdomo 01:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Separate letter?

The article says, "The English and Spanish alphabets classify it as an N with a tilde." Is this really true for Spanish? According to the Spanish Wikipedia, Ñ is a separate letter in the alphabet, and the Real Academia Española seems to agree when alphabetizing the entries in its dictionary.--Gabbec 21:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I will remove it. The English alphabet does not have it and in Spanish it is a separate letter. --Error 00:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Examples

From the article: "Unlike other uses of diacritics by alphabets which contain this symbol (such as ü in Astur-Leonese or â in Tagalog), in Spanish Ñ is considered a letter in its own right, with its own name (eñe) and its own place in the alphabet (after N)."

Shouldn't the examples be of words using other letters with the tilde over them, such as Portuguese São? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.139.153 (talk) 15:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Ñ not N

It seems that anglicizing the ñ into an n is popular due to the fact that many users are unware of how to manually type it in on a computer. Other factors such as not knowing the difference are among the problems that are arising. In Spanish the ñ is its own letter, it just happens that it looks like the letter n. However, mistaking the two is wrong because both have different pronunciation and different places in words. I've gone ahead and stated that anglicizing the letter Ñ of any word/ name into the letter N is incorrect, because that is a fact.

People are free to spell their names however they wish, correct or incorrect, but it is my job as a Wikipedia contributor to inform of spelling errors according to rules in language. It is a fact that the last name Peña relies on perfect spelling, otherwise it becomes Pena and symbolises the word embarrassment. Surely nobody would find it acceptable to spell the word Español into Espanol, there would be an uproar.--Speakslowly 04:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

From Speakslowly's talk page:

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You might think you know how people should spell their names better than they do themselves, but Wikipedia isn't the place to be spreading your wisdom. That ñ and n are pronounced differently in Spanish, and can change the meaning of a word, is a fact. The conclusion "hence, people shouldn't anglicize names" is not.

If you still insist on having it in the article, cite a source, and put it in the source's mouth (e.g. "XYZ recommends that immigrants not anglicize their names"). --Ptcamn 03:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I might think I know? No, I do know. Wikipedia prospers from my wisdom. By the way, perhaps you should re-read my statement on the ñ page, I never said that people shouldn't anglicize their names, I merely stated that doing so was breaking the rules of proper Spanish and spelling. Anybody is free to spell their name however they wish, even if they are incorrect. I am free to spread my knowledge in telling them that they are incorrect because that is a fact. --Speakslowly 04:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If, say, the Real Academia Española has officially addressed the issue of the anglicization of names, then you should be able to link to a site or cite a publication where they say so. And also remember that different organizations and individuals have different standards of correctness—you'd have to say "the Real Academia Española says this is incorrect", not simply "it is incorrect", since what's incorrect for one might be fine for another.

If not, I consider it original research and will remove it. --Ptcamn 04:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Transfer this discussion to the official Ñ page, I've alread begun. As for original research, you're absolutely ridiculous. It's very simple, the Ñ is it's own letter, meaning it is not acceptable to substitute it for an N or for an X or for the number 1.--Speakslowly 04:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

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All I can say is, don't take your own views for granted. It might seem to you that your conclusion is obviously the correct one, but not everyone necessarily agrees. You still have to cite sources. --Ptcamn 05:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My views are common sense. In English or any other language it is not acceptable to switch letters with a different letter for any reason. It's not acceptable to change the letter W in "wheat" to an M to create "mheat" because that is not logical. They are different letters! Like I said, you cannot substitue an Ñ for an N, X, or the number 1. I will find you a source when you can find me a source that says that it is acceptable to randomly replace letters in words/ names that are not the same. --Speakslowly 05:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, reread the above. "My views are common sense" is not sufficient justification.

You don't get the benefit of the doubt. I don't need to find a source that says that, since I'm not arguing that the article should say that. Until someone cites a source, the article should simply say that people do do it (easily verified), and not comment on the correctness or incorrectness of it. --Ptcamn 05:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You're not getting the point. Sources are not needed to inform people that replacing letters with a different letter is incorrect. That is an obvious observation for all. You're obviously ignorant for removing my truthful statement. If you can't see that replacing two different letters is wrong, then you shouldn't be allowed to write at all.

"—[T]he article should simply say that people do do it (easily verified), and not comment on the correctness or incorrectness of it."

You're saying that the article should say that people substitute the letter ñ for a different letter (in this case n) and not say that is it wrong? Do people simply lay back and allow misspellings to go unpunished? Of course not! That is why we have rules for spelling, because there is such a thing as right or wrong. Wikipedia is about correctness, and you're saying for us not to talk about it. Please do us a favour and leave. If everybody allowed misspellings to happen, our entire language would be chaos. I'd love to end this tedious debate, so if you can offer a revision of my sentence that I can agree with then all will be fine. Until then do not remove my comment.--Speakslowly 05:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Who makes the rules? If they're promulgated by a language academy, then you should be able to use them as a source.

Wikipedia is not about correctness. It's about verifiability. --Ptcamn 06:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I hope you like how I revamped the page. It has more information than it did before. I'd say it's much better. --Speakslowly 03:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It is better, but it's very POV. I strongly doubt the entire Spanish-speaking community holds the views you say they have (otherwise, who would be doing the anglicizing?). And the dominance of Spanish over the article with other languages getting just a parenthetical mention isn't good. --Ptcamn 05:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You probably think it's POV because it's strongly rooted in opinion, which is unpreventable in the "controversial" section. And I didn't say the entire Spanish speaking community, but most doing the anglicising are those who usually do not speak or read Spanish. If they did know the language, they would have followed the rules, unless they're conforming to "American" standards to fit in like Castaneda did.

I see you reverted to the old graphic, I decided to revert that and went back to the image I chose. I used Times New Roman and Arial which definitly defeats the previous image in whatever undistinguishable font that was. (The style also matches the one located on the æ page, of course the two have no corrolation but it's creating some harmony in Wikipedia.) The word "Español" is also distinctly associated with the letter Ñ, so it definitly beats piñata. The image is also of higher quality. As for your comment regarding the dominance of Spanish over the article, I simply followed the sources that I used. Spanish was the only language mentioned. If you'd like to add information to make it not so focused on it, feel free. I hope this is over.--Speakslowly 05:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to make the article not so focused on Spanish by making the example word given something — anything — other than the name of Spanish! There's at least 10 other languages that use the letter. It's not exactly neutral to give the impression that Spanish owns the letter, and they're just borrowing it. --Ptcamn 05:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The same goes for the title of the section "La Letra Ñ". --Ptcamn 05:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Technically Spanish owned it first, or created it first. But you're right, other languages do all share the letter equally. Somebody has already taken initative to remove "La Letra Ñ" so that's fine. Unfortunately I don't speak any of the other languages to find a word, but I think Español is a good example, a lot stronger than the word "piñata" which is also a Spanish word. --Speakslowly 17:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure medieval Latin owned it first, actually. Spanish just inherited it. And while Quechua is certainly Spanish-based, it's possible (I don't know if it's actually the case) that Aragonese, Asturian, or Galician had their own orthographic traditions using Ñ.

Seeing as this is the English wikipedia, I think we should use an English word. Piñata has been loaned into English, Español has not. --Ptcamn 19:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

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"The anglicizing of the ñ into an n is however incorrect..."

No it is not incorrect because ñ is not an English letter. (Just as 香港 is not English and is therefore angliciz/sed as Hong Kong). AjaxSmack 08:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is no body of rules to decide on the anglicization of foreign words. So one cannot say if a certain anglicization is incorrect. However, I believe one can say that anglicizing ñ into n is outdated and a bad idea: it was necessary when people used typewriters and old ASCII computers. Nowadays with Unicode, there is no reason not to keep the Spanish special character. Replacing ñ by n will lead people to mispronounce or even misunderstand the word, and so it is a bad idea to do it if it is not absolutely necessary. Chl 11:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Chinese is anglicised because it is not a Roman language. Spanish uses the same Latin language that English does, with the exception of the eñe. Other than that I totally agree with you. --Speakslowly 03:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You should understand that it is difficult to be an immigrant in a culture that doesn't know the letters in your name. For many people it is preferable to adapt their name and simplify their lives, rather than fight against the tide every day in an idealistic pro-ñ crusade. Try telling about Unicode and the letter ñ to the government agencies you have to interact with, the phone company, etc. After a few years you might get tired and let them write however they want. To look at it from another perspective, imagine a Scandinavian with an ø in his name living in a Spanish-speaking country. Everyone would think he is crazy and write his name with an o. Almost no one would know how to type the letter or how to pronounce it. After a while, he might just give up and start writing his name with an o too to please the Spanish-speaking bureaucrats and people. Itub 02:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I can understand the frustration, but it's your name. It is all you have, and if you allow people to trample and ruin it, then you've lost. Unfortunately the US government doesn't use the ñ because of their outdated software, that and the ñ usually get's lost through the system into a series of confusing numbers. I was the editor of my high school's yearbook, and you better believe anybody that had an ñ from Cedeño to Núñez had their names spelled correctly. I even spelled names like Nguyễn right! User:Speakslowly|Speakslowly]] 02:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment from a native spanish speaker. N and Ñ are 2 totally different letters, they sound different, they are used diferently and they cannot be interchanged. Take the word AÑO, for example, that means "year" in english, if you decide to change the ñ for an n, you'll have ANO, which means "anus", quite different, don't you think??? Well, anglicizing is clearly wrong, if you take an ñ and change it for an n, you are changing the word, it's like changing your name. Mr. Castaneda clearly doesn't have the same last name as some other Mr.s Castañeda in Chile. So changing the letter in spanish is wrong, you can do what you want in other languages, but that's clearly not spanish anymore.

Please sign your name next time. By the way I agree completely with you, it is a mistake in Spanish. Apparently though they don't want us to say it is a mistake because they feel that it is an opinion. Is it acceptable in English spell the word "because" as "bakause"? Of course not, they are two different letters! --Speakslowly 18:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

You people are wrong in saying that the Ñ is the only difference between the English alfabet and the Spanish alfabet. Other letters are the rr, ll, and ch. Just because they look like two letters doesn't mean that they are. The rr, ll, and ch are each individual letters. --TheOwnage 16:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I was taught that when I was younger, that ch, ll, and rr were individual letters in the Spanish alphabet, however the Real Academia Española changed that in 1994. --Speakslowly 03:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

According to the RAE, rr has never been consider a letter. Ch and ll still are officially considered letters, but they are alphabetized as "c h" and "l l". [1] Itub 11:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Where does it say that they're considered letters? I'd imagine that if they felt the need to remove them from the alphabet that they're not considered letters, but are consonants (also digraphs) and are being used like letters, but not officially "letters."--Speakslowly 19:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

In the link I gave above: "El abecedario español está hoy formado por las veintinueve letras siguientes: a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z". They emphasize that while they are not considered letters for alphabetization purposes, they are still letters of the alphabet ("Esta reforma afecta únicamente al proceso de ordenación alfabética de las palabras, no a la composición del abecedario"). Itub 20:10, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Closing

From my point of view, this article is now neutral. It clearly relates the problem of changing a ñ to a n, but without claiming that to do so is indiscriminately wrong or correct. I see no reason to have a POV tag on it, so I think we should remove it. Please discuss if you disagree. --Norwaystudent 11:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It's still hugely Spanish-centric. You can remove the POV tag, but keep the {{globalize}}.

Also:

Anglicism has been considered by some Spanish speakers to be an undesirable form of language contamination, who argue that with advances such as Unicode there is no typographical reason to "misspell" a loan word by replacing the ñ with a different one.

looks like original research, and is incorrect anyway. Computers have been able to use ñ since long before Unicode. There are reasons why people would want to anglicize things besides technological limitations. --Ptcamn 12:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would remove the entire argument about Unicode, because it's doubly wrong. On one hand, as you say, it has been possible to use the ñ since way before Unicode (even in the IBM PC character set). On the other hand, despite this, and despite Unicode, in the real world there are still way too many government and business systems and databases that don't handle the ñ or don't want to. These systems tend to be decades behind... Heck, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the problem still exists in Spanish-speaking countries (however, it was more common to transliterate Peña into something like Pe#a rather than Pena). ;-) Itub 17:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree it reads much better now, though the sentence "Such personal decisions can be perceived by the Spanish community as denying identity and heritage." (referring to the dropping of the ~ above the n) still lacks a source, and should be slapped with a "citation needed" until that time. Otherwise it's just the writer's opinion, which is not enough. Wikipedia is as we all should know by now not about stating "what everybody knows", it's about reproducing verifiable facts and sourced claims. 195.24.29.51 08:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The new picture

User:Cevlakohn put a new picture (Image:Ntildeexample2.PNG). I don't see the point in using the most obscure language possible as an example. There are 3000-4000 Panare speakers, according to the wikipedia article (I had never heard of the language). There are 400 million speakers of Spanish, so I think a Spanish example would be more representative. Also, if there are concerns about "global perspective", Spanish happens to be the only truly global language among those who use the ñ. Another alternative is to just put a picture of the letter with no sample word if you are concerned about "Spanish-centricity". Itub 18:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, IMO we should use a word which has been loaned into English, this being the English wikipedia. --Ptcamn 18:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd be happy with "piñata". Itub 19:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Should be in Spanish, it's the only global language that uses this letter, and piñata is not an english word, but a spanish word, every word with a Ñ in english is not english but spanish, so if you use piñata it's spanish anyway.

You use a strange and nonstandard definition of "English". --Ptcamn 06:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Piñata is fine, it's a lot better than yu'kïtiñe, which is never even given the meaning on the page. How about sueño? It means dream and sleepiness. Or we can try jalapeño, which is a Spanish word that has been borrowed into the English language. --Speakslowly 15:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The other picture

Why do we use the photo of a dirty keyboard when the spanish-language template has a picture of a nice, clean keyboard? Is there any good reason why we should keep the current one over this other one? --200.44.7.192 04:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind if you change it, in fact I encourage it. The photo on the Spanish language page is more pleasing. --Speakslowly 15:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The dirt in on the camera lens, not the keyboard. But OK. 59.101.215.205 11:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The name of the letter?

Is this letter called an eñe? How does one pronounce eñe? 74.136.88.231 03:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

In Spanish it is called "eñe" and it's pronounced en-yeh.--Speakslowly 19:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Due to the way Spanish splits words into syllables, it is actually pronounced e-nyeh, if that's what you meant with the hyphen. Helios 23:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I like yours much better. --Speakslowly 06:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

From the article: "It is most famously used in Spanish alphabet, where it represents a palatal nasal (IPA: [ɲ]), reminiscent of as /nj/ as in "onion" IPA: [ˈʌnjən], but not exactly the same."

Then how is it pronounced? The only difference I can see is that, in onion, the [n] and [j] sounds occur in different syllables, whereas the [ɲ] is all supposed to occur in one syllable. 207.69.139.153 15:36, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I say the letter like "en-yay". -Indolences 21:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

See palatal nasal. The /ɲ/ is one sound, not two.

How is the glyph (letter) prounounced in the Spanish alphabet? That's what I came here looking for. In English, the letter 'm' is spelled and pronounced 'em.' Is the Spanish spelling for the letter 'ñ' 'eñe' or is it 'enñe' ? David.daileyatsrudotedu (talk) 14:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems that the consonant cluster /nj/ can be allophonically realised as [ɲ] by some English speakers. However, since it's not an independent phoneme in English, I'm not convinced that this description helps them to get the sound right. It seems to me that most just keep saying "ny" ("pinyata", "pinya calahda", "halapenyo", etc.) FilipeS 11:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

also what?

"In Spanish and some other languages (for example Aragonese, Asturian, Aymara, Quechua, Guaraní, Tagalog, Basque, Galician, Tetum) whose orthographies were created under Spanish influence, it also represents the palatal nasal."

My guess this was meant to mean "it's also used in those languages", but that's not how it parses. I propose removing the word also from the sentence. 195.24.29.51 07:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

IN CATALAN THE LETTER "Ñ" IS NOT USED!!! I'M CATALAN AND KNOW YOU KNOW IT STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH...SO PLEASE CHANGE IT!!

other languages

Ñ as an alternative pronunciation of N also exists in Greek, mainly in some dialects of Greek. and in these dialects it's not always used instead of N. of course not as a part of the alphabet or anything.. that is true but i don't think i can have any source for that. i dunno if you can tell it's there for example>

with Ñ >>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ell-nixta.ogg

with regular N >> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ell-nychta.ogg btw nychta means night. the regular N is far more used though CuteHappyBrute (talk) 04:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I have seen that ñ is also present in Breton language, if somebody could complete this...--Jorge.maturana (talk) 12:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

How to reach the page

If you don't have a keyboard with the ñ or don't know the code (like ALT + 0241) it's very hard to reach this page. Because the "~ + n" doesn't work in the wikipedia searchbar. I got here through the page about the letter "n" under "See also". Not to add to the "n or ñ" discussion, but is it maybe a good idea to add a disambiguation/referral page to the word "ene" (for people who know the name eñe) and the letter "n"? 82.169.112.106 (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see it has been done, or I missed it before ^_^ 82.169.112.106 (talk) 16:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)