Google Doodle is celebrating the Spanish Letter Ñ

Google Doodle is celebrating the consonant Ñ (pronounced “enye”) on April 23, 2021. Ñ (lower case ñ, eñe) is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet and the only letter in the Spanish alphabet that began in Spain, the Ñ is a letter as well as a representation of Hispanic heritage and identity.

What is Letter Ñ?

Ñ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by placing a tilde (likewise refered to as virgulilla in Spanish) on top of an upper-or lowercase N.

The Ñ’s story began with twelfth century Spanish scribes. While hand-copying Latin manuscripts, these researchers of the Middle Ages concocted an arrangement to save time and parchment by shortening words with double letters.

They joined the two figures along with one and scribbled on top a little “n”— a symbol currently known as a “virgulilla” or tilde—to connote the change. Along these lines, “annus,” Latin for “year,” advanced into the Spanish “año.”

In 1803, it was officially entered into the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary, and in 1993, Spain passed enactment to ensure its incorporation in computer keyboards on the grounds of its insuppressible cultural importance.

In 2010, the United Nations announced April 23rd a day to every year celebrate the Spanish language, one of the most commonly spoken in the world.

It became important for the Spanish alphabet in the eighteenth century when it was first officially characterized, yet it has consequently been utilized in different languages, for example, Galician, Asturian, the Aragonese Grafra di Uesca, Basque, Chavacano, some Philippine dialects (particularly Filipino and Bisayan), Chamorro, Guarani, Quechua, Mapudungun, Mandinka, and Tetum alphabet, as well as in Latin literal interpretation of Tocharian and Sanskrit, where it represents [ɲ].

It represents [ŋ] in Crimean Tatar, Malay, Indonesian, Nauruan and romanized Quenya. In Breton and in Rohingya, it means nasalization of the previous vowel. Numerous Portuguese speakers utilize this letter in informal internet language to represent the word não (not).

Not at all like numerous different letters that utilization diacritic marks, (for example, Ü in Catalan and Spanish and Ç in Catalan, French and Portuguese), Ñ in Spanish, Galician, Basque, Asturian, Leonese, Guarani and Filipino is viewed as a letter by its own doing, has its own name (in Spanish: eñe), and its own position in the alphabet (after N).

Generally it came from a superscript abbreviation for a doubled N. Its alphabetical independence is like the Germanic W, which came from a doubled V.

The letter Ñ has come to represent the identity of the Spanish language. Latin publisher Bill Teck named Hispanic culture and its effect on the United States “Generation Ñ” and later began a magazine with that name.

Associations like the Instituto Cervantes and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have received the letter as their mark for Hispanic heritage.

In Spanish it represents a palatal nasal. This is likewise the case of Philippine languages, Aymara, Quechua, Mapudungún, Guarani, Basque, Chamorro, Leonese, Yavapai, and Iñupiaq, whose orthographies have some premise in that of Spanish.

Numerous dialects of Senegal likewise use it similarly. Senegal is extraordinary among nations of West Africa in utilizing this letter.

Today, the letter Ñ shows up in excess of 17,700 Spanish words, cutting out a basic role within the language and Hispanic culture.

On April 23, 2021, Google Doodle artwork, represented by Barcelona-based guest artist Min, is celebrating the Letter Ñ.