How Spanish got its ñ - the story behind that "n with a tilde"

The history of an ordinary Latin mark that turned into an extraordinary Spanish letter. This is how espannol became español!
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Back in medieval Spain, scribes were putting the Latin alphabet on parchment to hand stories and information down to us in their manuscripts. One of their unique, rare manuscripts tells the story of El Cid. But if you look at this manuscript, you'll see that the script is a bit... strange.
Get close enough to the pergamino (parchment) to see all the little squiggles. In Latin, that squiggle is a "titulus". In Spanish, the word "titulus" evolved into "tilde".
Let's follow just one of those squiggles to learn its story. It's the story of a routine little mark that became one of the world's most recognizable letters.
~ CREDITS & SOURCES ~
Art, narration and animation by Josh from NativLang.
Some of the music, too (intro piano, ending, light guitar in the middle, Thoth's Pill bit and "Upbeat Thoughts").
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
Arid Foothills, Path of the Goblin King v2, Angevin B, The Show Must Be Go
Sneaky Snooper by Jason Shaw (audionautix.com).
Upbeat Thoughts (soundcloud.com/Botmasher).
Sources for claims and for imgs, fonts and sfx:
docs.google.com/document/d/1f...

[@NativLang]

It took me a month to animate the history of one single letter...

[@bluetannery1527]

Idk how you feel, but it looks worth it to me

[@manuelbonet]

A whole month? And I just type it in less than a second in my keyboard! Obviously, because I'm Spanish. I didn't even know the origin of it.

[@dk.kapsukas2195]

make a video about the Lithuanian language!

[@jalex23]

Well, thanks for taking the time!

[@brunocanseiro7324]

I'm a native Portuguese. Not only is the quality of your research immaculate (and trust me, I detect errors about all things Iberian way too easily on KZbin videos, but I swear I could never find any fault in yours whenever ye olde Hispania is brought up), but your pronunciation of both Spanish and Portuguese is absolutely top-notch - especially those pesky nasal sounds; I know it can be hard (thanks for the Portuguese vowels shoutout by the way). You should be forever grateful for your amazing talents. For all I care, all of your hard work is worthwhile, much appreciated and desperately needed!

[@minikiwi1206]

His PERFEcCT pronunciation in almost every language startles me..

[@fatmakahramanl2597]

Öl

[@terner1234]

In some languages his pronounciation isn't this good. Hebrew for example.

[@weltschmertzz]

@@terner1234 here come KZbin police

[@serseriherif9530]

@@yuame7605 galiba 😂

[@roquefuertee2296]

Yes it is amazing

[@skittlesperez9997]

5:14 "Real Academia Española" 😍 Your pronunciation was so beautiful and well done!!!

[@Candyrock15]

I replayed it like 3 times, it was so good

[@danterex7276]

que flasheas

[@Zinericks]

@@danterex7276 XDDDDD Me imagino los gringos viendo todo lo que dijeron en el video sobre que había que ponerle orden al idioma y vienen los latinos y se re inventan un montón de palabras.

[@thedoberman9458]

@@Zinericks LoL

[@mickgorro]

​@@ZinericksSegún Google ese comentário no dice nada. It literally gets translated to just the "tag", for some bizarre reason :).

[@ManuEnergetico]

Había una vez una araña, Que vivía en una cabaña, Hecha toda de caña, Sobre una gran montaña. Once there was a spider, Who lived in a cabin, Made entirely of cane, On a great mountain.

[@GoogleAccount-if6pu]

pls in russian i no speak london

[@weirdboi3512]

@@GoogleAccount-if6pu i do

[@duranvasquezjosuee.6191]

Buen español mi pana 👌

[@GoogleAccount-if6pu]

БЛЯТЬ! Я ГОВОРЮ В РУССКИЙ!

[@isabellopes152]

In Portuguese: Era uma vez uma aranha que vivia numa cabana feita toda de cana sobre uma grande montanha very similar (ñ = nh) We use the "til" = ~ only with vowels, to make nasal ditongues such as ão (singular) ões (plural)

[@mrpalaces]

So medieval monks were cheap on parchment and began to shorten words like teenagers texting. Lel :P

[@zidapplip]

if you think about it, teenagers started shortening words because SMS cost a lot of money back then.

[@veranet99]

Teenagers concerned with cost? Laziness and impatience are more likely drivers of that behavior. ;)

[@JohnDoe-qx3zs]

+veranet99 Some kids probably got the phone bill subtracted from their pocket money. Also, older cellphones had really small screens, difficult keypads and no autocorrect forcing the use of full words. But all space constrained message systems had this. Telegraph, ledgers, medical records, price tags, tombstones.

[@endawmyke]

John Doe nice save

[@4thdimension760]

When mom and dad shut that shit down, you'd be concerned about cost. Many pay for it out of job $ too.

[@cafeta]

Alt + 164 = ñ Alt + 165 = Ñ just in case you want to write "year" in Spanish "año"... ano means something very very different :P

[@kikones34]

Mi papa tiene 30 anos -> My potato has 30 anuses. That example has always amused me :P

[@elbalcon6144]

That's why we have diacritical tildes. We use them, also, for reffering to 2st person past. So, "mato" (I kill) is not the same as "mató" (He killed). Another curiostity: we use a lot of tacital subjects. We love it (lo amamos).

[@JohnnyCagePro]

Whenever I can't use the ñ, I just replace it with the letters ny, anyo. Like "Catalunya"

[@elbalcon6144]

JohnnyCagePro We are more likely to use "ni" (some people that commit ortagraphic errors use to write "ni" instead of "ñ" 'cause they sound alike - "pañuelo" and "paniuelo", "compañía" and "companía", "araña" and "arania" -, so, as a common error, can be also used as a common replaceable pair of words) or, as I prefeer, "gn" (like in italian, for example: "gnochi" and "ñoqui")

[@elbalcon6144]

apollo hada You'll prefeer an "ojete" or "culo", dou.

[@saturnhexe]

as a native spanish speaker, i feel extremely happy to see people like you tell stories about our language that was never taught to me in school.

[@thsxi]

Spanish: ñ Polish: ń Russian: нь English: *confused screaming*

[@thadea1679]

Italian: gn

[@thefisherking78]

English: "ni" or "ny" we're not THAT useless

[@Mikylathereal_blank]

Filipino: ng and ñ

[@georgetanner9381]

Croatian: nj

[@FishikK]

Slovak: ň

[@rafabartochowski1299]

Polish letter "ń" sounds exactly like spanish "ñ"! What a coincidence :)

[@tungxeng3846]

ñ = ń = ņ = ň = nh = nj = ....... 😉😉

[@josemiguelcarrizo7373]

@@tungxeng3846 =gn (French)=ny (Catalonian)

[@tungxeng3846]

@@josemiguelcarrizo7373 OK :)))

[@purohueso5644]

@@tungxeng3846 and "GN" in Italian and french

[@tungxeng3846]

@@purohueso5644 ÖK :-)

[@9Tensai9]

I love how your voice changes when you speak spanish. Es como si te volvieras una persona diferente.

[@adiossoydaniel]

SEE

[@gitanafox9852]

Que rico!

[@alansitothegoblin6428]

Gitana Fox wtf

[@veronica-]

Honestly that kinda happens to me too when I switch languages, and to a lot of other people too that I know of, I think it's pretty normal

[@dregen8662]

That happends because Spanish is a more "deep" language and English more "acute"

[@bryanweber5177]

5:05 native Spanish speaker here: "tilde" is used as a synonym of accent, but it's not used when referring to the umlaut (¨). Those are called "diéresis" (dee-ehh-re-seez)

[@danterex7276]

no nada que ver xd

[@pigeon8797]

@@danterex7276 Probably [ˈd̪je.ɾe.sis] rather than [ˈde.e.eh.hre.se.ez]

[@welcometotheinternet574]

Actually, tilde is used to the sound “ ´ ” (á,é,í,ó,ú). The “ ¨ “ sound is called “diéresis” (who just aplies to an special moment in the “gui” and “gue” where you want to pronounce the “u” sound) and the “~” is called “virgulilla”.

[@omargerardolopez3294]

No, they're all tildes, the ones on vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú) are called "acute accents"

[@JAVIMETALL]

Sí, pero también se puede utilizar "tilde" de forma genérica para denominar a cualquier marca que acompañe a una letra para indicar que tiene un sonido más destacado o especial. Incluso a la cedilla se le puede llamar tilde.

[@welcometotheinternet574]

@@omargerardolopez3294 y @CaraDeMoneda. Cierto, aunque también añadir que el término virgulilla es intercambiable con tilde. Lo que pasa es que para diferenciarlos y por simplicidad se refiere al acento agudo como acento o tilde y a la virgulilla como, bueno, como virgulilla

[@danterex7276]

la tilde lo único que hace es darle acento a las letras escomo salome si tilde

[@Zinericks]

@@danterex7276 o como mamá sin tilde

[@rocio00002]

As spanish native speaker, it's rare listen the history of the "ñ" from a english speaker. By the way, nice video, good information.

[@pedrojimenez7195]

Yo también! :/

[@carreroster]

Pienso igual, aprendí con este video. Thanks for this video.

[@xkaiokenx10]

sí, yo nunca sabía los origenes de la letra ñ hasta que encontré este video. Que interesante ^^

[@DiamondTurtleGamer]

mechtateli02 Si. Ñ Muay Mal!

[@bluetannery1527]

Soy un estudiante de español; soy un hablante de inglés nativa. Tu oración debe ser "It's rare to listen," no "it's rare listen." :-)

[@alvcm7208]

As a spanish I am actually really impressed you pronounced every spanish word flawless. Contratulations! Many Americans and english offen destroy sounds like r or the c you already mentioned

[@thiagocattani4333]

Ñ

[@mirhasanoddname]

Well, he's a linguist. Part of his job is to pronounce the words correctly.

[@salomerodriguez5145]

Feathers Not necesarilly, he could still have an accent (which is normal and I wouldn't consider it to “destroy“ a language). My prof at university speaks spanish flawlessly and still has a strong french accent.

[@salomerodriguez5145]

Skygazer Lingüistics don't consider accents to be flaws, actually there's very little that are considered flaws in flanguage as long as it's understandable (if you don't want to be normative). If my prof spoke unclearly, I don't think she would be able to be the head of the spanish department 😌 Obviously there are accents that are troublesome, but they are not flaws per se, just like different spanish accents aren't flaws either. It's just the way people speak :)

[@kevinbr3197]

ALVCM what about mexicans did we destroy the spanish language ? Lol

[@lorenzchristiantaoy6196]

Being part of the Spain's territories before, the Philippines also adapted the ñ. In our alphabet it is also the 15th letter, and next to that would be ng. Not familiar how the ng became a letter in the Philippine Alphabet though. Would be nice to have an episode on that hehe

[@mortimer687]

ng is a letter made from the phoneme ŋ which has always been in philippine languages, although i think it may be a shortening of the entire word nang since old tagalog texts have a tilde on top of the g in ng

[@Countryballphilanimation]

Your Right

[@jrd7972]

@@Countryballphilanimation you're* po

[@mechanikalbull5626]

Scrolling down surely find ultranationalist phiignoys in the comments And i'm not wrong

[@mortimer687]

@@mechanikalbull5626 how is any of this ultranationalistic

[@yoshiparkersenju9697]

Pibe gringo: **existe** Todos los hablantes del español: Ñ

[@sakuraihanaable]

it's funny when people without ñ in the keyboard put they have 20 anos

[@solountipomas8616]

Uranus is a planet? Mine isn´t

[@pepeperez2774]

"Ano" significa "anus"

[@solountipomas8616]

Es una coña en ingles, Uranus es el planeta Urano, pero suena como si dijera Your annus (tu culo)

[@pepeperez2774]

solountipomas No me fijé en que hablas un idioma sensato, perdona. Te confundí con un anglófobo, disculpa. Es por lo de que el vídeo va sobre la "eñe", pensé que era algo entre "ano" y "año" Merezco morir, lo sé.

[@solountipomas8616]

No digas bobadas, comparado con lo que hacen los cobardes que se ocultan tras el anonimato del ordenador y la distancia para sacar su lado nazi o su mala sangre, tu y yo somos unos santurrones

[@JohnathanJWells]

NEVER teach english speaker that ñ is an "n with an accent". That just confuses them and may make them think that consonants can be accentuated. The way spanish speakers are thought about it is like if it was another letter.

[@Burn_Angel]

Uh, but it is. The thing above the Ñ is commonly reffered to as "tilde", which means accent. Yes, it's not the same as with vowels, but it's called the same way. And for the record, Y can supposedly also have a tilde (Ý), but I've never that, even on really old books. Maybe that's possible in old spanish.

[@Rafaelinux]

@@Burn_Angel But no one ever calls the wiggly line a "tilde" but just calls the whole letter "eñe". If you want to refer to the "~" you just say "palito de la eñe" or similar.

[@Burn_Angel]

@@Rafaelinux Not always. Also, it doesn't need to be wiggly, some people just draw a line over the N to write an Ñ.

[@Android25K]

@@Burn_Angel it depends, if you are writing in letra de molde, they use the wiggly thing. If you are writing cursive on the other hand, it is faster to just put a straight line on top of it

[@Burn_Angel]

@@Android25K What the hell is "Letra de molde"? You mean imprenta? Also, I've never seen anyone write the Ñ with a line in cursive. I dunno.

[@carsan09]

As I was born in a Latin country and therefore Spanish-speaking, I have always been told that ñ is one of the most impressive things in my native language.

[@marvinsilverman4394]

latin??? latinoamerica is more precise

[@AM-yi4dd]

Latin America is Latin that's why its called Latin America. I use Latin and Latin America interchangeably, so keep using it. Don't let other people define it for you.

[@undeadastronaut1746]

Anglo-saxons: i fear no man, but that thing "Ñ" it scares me

[@jammehrmann1871]

Why though?

[@deldarel]

Nice! Can you make one on the german ß?

[@DomenBremecXCVI]

Yes, yes, yes! Good idea!

[@pilot4807]

Gute Idee man

[@thengutd]

the story of it is quite short. it probably wouldn't take a whole video.

[@jazztom86]

+Mr. Rich B.O.B I never heard it being called sz though, always heard it as "scharfes s". And it's not true, in Austria the same grammar as in Germany is used, therefore, the scharfes s (or sz) is used normally like in Germany. It isn't used in Swiss and Liechtenstein, but in all other regions of countries, where german is used.

[@EebstertheGreat]

+TheJman0205 The oldest uses of the "eszett" ligature 'ß' were actually for ſz in fraktur, while the later antiqua used it for ſs. Of course, the truth is far more complicated, as both typefaces coexisted for centuries and the meaning of ß varied over time as it gradually became incorporated as a proper letter of the alphabet rather than simply a ligature like & or æ*. *Not a German ligature. Unfortunately, the only German ligature with its own code point in Unicode is ß.

[@PaulX41]

We don't use "tilde" for everything. The "tilde" in the "ñ" is called:"virgulilla" and the "ü" is called:"diéresis"

[@unfunnywasteland9692]

Im a native spanish speaker,and i always wondered what was the name of the "~" thingy.Thank u

[@giatu1]

@@unfunnywasteland9692 Podrías haberlo dicho en español ¿no? XD

[@unfunnywasteland9692]

@@giatu1 si,pero me da flojera

[@gunslingingbird74]

Nunca había escuchado la palabra virgulilla. Yo creo que ni mis maestros de primaria ni secundaria conocían esa palabra. Para mí siempre se ha llamado el sombrero de la ñ. 🙂

[@GumaroRVillamil]

A tilde in Spanish referrs to ANY diacritic mark. A virgulilla de la ñ is a type of tilde, just like cedilla, diérisis, acento gráfico, etc, are also types of tildes

[@AngryKittens]

*Fun fact:* when Spain colonized the Philippines, they also shortened the most commonly used words and added titulos (this was still within the Old Spanish period). The plural marker _manga_ became _mg̃á._ The ergative case marker _nang_ became _ng̃._ These are retained in modern Filipino orthography as "mga" and "ng" (though they are still pronounced "manga" and "nang").

[@Agent-ie3uv]

Only slumlanders interested on your little fUnN fAcT. No one ask so sit down philipna

[@danybarbarbosa8489]

Wow I am so happy I found an explanation for this "ñ", I think this is useful for teachers in Spanish speaking countries....

[@danielapaza5994]

I've learned from my native language in an English video. XD

[@dianitalittlecupcaketurtle3739]

exaaaaaaaaactly

[@soyespecial96]

DaN.g The funniest is that I didn't realized the spanish subtitles until the end xD

[@carlamontejanolopez1585]

Same. xD

[@2020lenka]

jajajaja yo también

[@angelsaguilan]

me too

[@ZerpPickleZiP]

Im gonna say the ñ word ño

[@alexandraone2979]

Xd

[@therealjumin1941]

xD

[@angelinalaso6430]

Also ñed

[@ZerpPickleZiP]

@@angelinalaso6430 wot is a ned

[@angelinalaso6430]

Flanders

[@donaldklopper]

Loved this video. The animation, on point pronunciation, narration and actual script are simply brilliant. Well done. Such pro. Subbed.

[@danterex7276]

bro la pronunciación es muy mala para a verla repetido mil veces a nosotros pocas veces no confundimos en esas cosas

[@donaldklopper]

@@danterex7276 Que impresionante

[@ngpt141]

I really need to hear this man say some full sentences in spanish, I just loved how good his pronunciation is

[@someonerandom704]

He could probably do a full video in Spanish with only minor mistakes

[@Toast0808]

The Castillian pronunciation "Thapato" "El Thid" "Tharagotha" "Murthia" "Cothina" (Zapato, El Cid, Zaragoza, Murcia, Cocina) sounds so nice. I love it.

[@GdotWdot]

I'm always embarassed that I usually understand Latin American variants of Spanish much better although I prefer the Castilian pronounciation (as that's what I was taught).

[@siempreconsofi3912]

I'm Spanish and I love it too 😂😂 I just hate our "j"

[@ssach7]

no

[@Nivek725z]

+SiempreCon Sofi ¿Por que la odiaís?

[@paterbubo]

Será porque la pronunciamos muy fuerte

[@vzangel]

The logo of CNN en español has a big tilde over both n. So it should be CÑ instead, haha.

[@robertandersson1128]

You again. Hello there! I remember you from _the Ling Space_!

[@robertandersson1128]

***** I just guess we have the same interest: linguistics.

Twitter's Spanish Twitter account is a twitter bird with a tilde.

[@SnixGXT]

CNN en Español rebrand is awful. I used to watch it as "CNN en Español" with the old graphics. The channel now seems to be like a CNN-themed entertainment channel rather than an exact, fully-translated variant of the original CNN in the US.

[@Jeffrey314159]

¿CNN crapola noticeros network?

[@QueenChristine826]

This was fun and educational. Thanks for posting.

[@albiegato]

I believe that the two apostrophe-less Tagalog contractions came from this shorthand as well: manga > mğa > mga nang > nğ > ng

[@PtolemyJones]

Well crap, now I want to know more about El Cid's horse...

[@UntakenNick]

Well, when he died they tied his dead body in a way that it seemed that he was riding it to scare the enemy troops, so he won his last battle dead.

[@PtolemyJones]

I remember that from the movie, what a great scene that was...

[@UntakenNick]

PtolemyJones Didn't know there was a movie about him..

[@PtolemyJones]

Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, 1961, top notch, worth the watch.

[@terepk]

I kñow, right!

[@truji2582]

your spanish pronounciation has got to be the greatest i've seen from a non-spanish channel

[@japocamicase6861]

De hecho es la peor pronunciacion la mejor pronunciacion es la de surgical goblin

[@danterex7276]

pues has visto pocos si hay personas famosas como juegagerman que son youtubers latinoamericano famoso casi 50 millones de sub pero otras personas como spreen no tienen muy buena pronunciación principal mente por que es disléxico pero este lo habla bien pero no esta ala altura de otros

[@Agent-ie3uv]

Spanish is so easy to pronounced tho 🤧🙄🤧🙄🤣💀

[@Tibicena]

In Spain we also say /s/ in the Canaries, not only in some parts of Andalusia 😊

[@LyingRose]

Me encanta tu español.🌺 No quiero, necesito un vídeo tuyo hablando solo en español. Excelente video❤️

[@leonardogabriel955]

I really love when people from native english speaks spanish so well, you can notice the accent and I love the sound at the end of your sentences.

[@jayc222]

That's why 'hand' is 'mão' em português but 'mano' en español. The 'n' floated up above the 'a' em português while remaining parked between the 'a' and 'o' en español.

[@therealjumin1941]

JC Aranda En Español 'Mano' is easier. Mão seems much harder. Mão is like Mau(o) I can’t tell em português is just very hard

[@Bypolter94]

Así es

[@lukeriftwalker1306]

@@therealjumin1941 it's pronounced "m'ãw"

[@mateusmartins9549]

@@therealjumin1941 Try to say an N with the mounth open

[@glpinho]

Congratulations, I've never seen English, Portuguese and Spanish mixed in the same sentence!

[@Tower_Swagman]

As a native Spanish speaker, i am impressed about your Spanish pronunciation, and how you practically never butchered any Spanish words

[@BigNews2021]

And he can switch accents very well as well. In another video he spoke Spanish with a perfect Caribbean accent.

[@maud3444]

Historian here: Same thing occured in the Middle ages in current day Belgium and Holland. They wrote the double o, double e or double a with a mark in top: Boomgaard (= orchard) became Bômgârd for instance. Nowadays these marks aren't used anymore

[@rjfaber1991]

You sure it didn't happen all over the Netherlands, but just in Holland? 🤔

[@Anansi__]

Your Spanish accent is 👌

[@Oliver-gd7uf]

MykaArellano It's not really a Spanish accent. Latin American

[@VictorLopez-ei4uy]

@@Oliver-gd7uf es español neutral no, español latinoamericano ya que no existe

[@dennis5170]

Not Unlikely Oliver its spain accent, in spain there are different accents aswell if ur from barcelona ur accent gonna be little different than if ur from Zaragoza for example. But if u DONT speak spanish u will never notice about it

[@northxf]

@Laura Martínez Mayormente nos referimos al español neutral al español que no usa modismos.

[@martasalanova8156]

MykaArellano C'mon! His accent is not that good AT ALL. HIs "t", "d" , that forced "rr " sound (same thing happens to me when I get to pronounce the german"r" 😂), and, most of all, what we call here "línea melódica" , all those things and others show clearly English is his mother tongue. Good accent, but not that good (but surely much better than mine speaking English 😂😂).

[@pez2601]

Gracias a Dios ya no es lo mismo un año que un anno *

[@funkymonk5782]

Es divertido porque los hispanohablantes tenemos ésta clase de chistes que solo nosotros entendemos

[@lorabex791]

Let me explain to english speakers. Año = Year. Ano = Anus. Anno = Annus(?)

[@amellirizarry9503]

Este es el comentario mas gracioso de este video y nadie alla fuera puede entenderlo🤣😂

[@liliaguzman4307]

😂😂😂

[@therealjumin1941]

Rafael X let me! Hola = hello Gracias = Thank you Año = Year

Wonderful explanation! I will watch it with my students! Thank you very much.

[@liveAiming]

Your pronunciation is always amazing, in every language in your videos, insane.

[@wales2k4747]

6:01 True, that actually is how some companies do it. CNN does it for CNN Español, the logo being “CÑN”.

[@maggi_knorr]

Ce eñe eñe. :3

[@Nugcon]

C Nyen N

[@adri1830]

😒 I don't think so (I'm Spanish)

[@gunslingingbird74]

No, they don't. CNN in Spanish is called CNN Español.

[@hyacinthrivera2191]

@@gunslingingbird74 They were making a comment about the logo, which is indeed stylized as CÑN.

[@dainobu10]

Just because I know you understand I'll switch to spanish. Siempre tuve esa duda de la Ñ, su origen y la razón por la que solo aparece en el diccionario español. He estado echándole el ojo a algunos de tus videos ya que entre mis hobbies está aprender idiomas y pues gracias a tu contenido no solo amplío mi conocimiento lingüístico sino que también hago una breve pero interesante exploración a los orígenes y reglas de las lenguas. Felicidades por tu trabajo!

[@kumaknox9485]

You see, the syllables 'ge' and 'gi' make the sounds /he/ and /hi/, so to represent /ge/ and /gi/ Spanish adds a 'u' between them (gue and gui). So to make the actual sounds /gue/ and /gui/ they add ümlauts.

[@renatocpribeiro]

We used to do that in Portuguese, but we stopped recently at least in Brazil. Idk how the whole spelling reform is in the other lusophone countries.

[@Haaklong]

I hate that my mother is from Latin-America but that I'm Dutch because I understood every word but can't reply, L.O.L.

[@talideon]

It's not an umlaut, mind, but a *dieresis*: they looks similar, but they're really different diacritics. An umlaut represents a sound change (fronting of back vowels and raising of front vowels), whereas a dieresis indicates that the vowel should be treated separately form the preceding letter (to prevent a sequence of vowels being interpreted as a diphthong, or a consonant/vowel pair being treated as a digraph). They have different origins too: whereas the umlaut diacritic came from a small 'e' written above the vowel, the dieresis originated in Greek as a kind of primitive word separator where there might be ambiguity: Greek used to be written continuously with no word spaces, though the origin of the space and modern punctuation is its own story[1]. [1] In a nutshell, Irish monks wanted to make it easier to read Latin, and invented/adapted various signs to make it easier for them, laying the foundations for modern punctuation, including the full stop and quotes.

[@TaiFerret]

I thought 'ge' and 'gi' were pronounced as /xe/ and /xi/. Or does it depend on accent or dialect?

[@MiThreeSunz]

I learned something new today! Thank you! 😊

[@ngs8022]

Congrats once and again to Josh for his precision phonemes. Nails them. Bravo. Enhorabuena, tío. Wish me luck with the Danish I'm now learning...

[@victorosorio5252]

Excellent video, as always! I'm a Spaniard myself and I had no clue how the Ñ came to be.

[@oc3607]

Yo creo que casi nadie lo sabe XD

[@andresperales1406]

99% de nosotros no tiene la mas mínima idea

[@SnixGXT]

Maybe just a little research on Wikipedia might just solved things, tbh. Latin American over here.

[@Mitchazeh]

I'm also a Spaniard and I didn't know the history related to the letter "ñ".

[@victorosorio5252]

Juan d'Ossorio Hey, my surname is Osorio as well

[@91185mccoy]

Give me a good bottle of Spanish brandy and i can read those medieval spanish manuscrips and pronounce it too. All day

[@alaiterg]

Tequila dos the job

[@pqbdwmnu]

Drink vodka read Russian good Я не знать русский

[@carloswhisper1281]

Hahaha jajaja xaxaxa

[@pqbdwmnu]

crls crrsc prz это хахаха товарищ, идти Гулаг

[@juanmam.2113]

Spanish is my native language and tried to read the medieval version of the myo cid. Stopped on first chapter because I didnt understand anything so good luck with the Ayahuasca lol

[@lunyxappocalypse7071]

Thank you, this will be of great help when I am writing my transcribing program for Filipino languages to BayBaYin and other scripts.

[@martinvillarroel420]

¡Wow! So interesting! Congrats! Edition so good, too!

[@baykkus]

MINOR MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING!

[@alejandromatosanguis5267]

It is not minor *cries*

[@nothingposted9056]

I bet you got a happy new anus instead of a Happy New Year.

[@nenelopez3026]

Medieval Spanish had cedilla like French and Portuguese. Can you make a video of origen of that and why is not any more in Modern Spanish?

[@sion8]

As far as I know is a combo of ‹C› and the Medieval way of writing ‹Z› and it originated with the Visigoths apparently.

[@baykkus]

It's not in Modern Spanish anymore because using a z fulfills the same purpose.

[@sion8]

Julio Ruiz​ Exactly, Portuguese and French just seem to used it for tradition sake, but in other languages ‹Ç› can be used as ‹Ch› is used in most others, specially in Turkic languages that use the Latin script.

[@noname_atall]

at least in portuguese, ç does not sound like a z at all, it is more like an double s

[@desanipt]

In Portuguese "ç" is always read like the "s" is the English word "say", with mo exception. That's way I don't understand why in English "Açores" (a Portuguese archipelago) is written as "Azores" and not "Assores" because that's how we it is actually pronounced in Portuguese.

[@alejandrocanasortiz9205]

So pleased to know that an English speaker KZbinr has paid attention to the letter ñ! My surname is Cañas (canes, reeds), but in USA and Canada it turn to be Canas (grey hairs). ¡Le agradezco mucho, señor Nativlang!

[@Hyoungje]

I loved this video! Learned a lot.

[@giovanni-cx5fb]

Your Spanish pronunciation is perfect!

[@jorgeperez6049]

giovanni9107 no way.

[@deadwing7180]

I don't know what his nationality is, but i can bet he is Colombian, i might be wrong though, in which case he has a perfect pronunciation in every way!

[@giovanni-cx5fb]

Deadwing He's actually American! Not even a native Spanish speaker.

[@tomasrestrepo5572]

+Deadwing In Colombia are like five types of acents so... But I think you're referending (or homever it's written) yo the "rolo" acento.

[@tomasrestrepo5572]

*to the "rolo" acent Shitty autocorrector in spanish!

[@iamanan5634]

in portuguese the "nh" has the same sound as spanish ñ

[@alovioanidio9770]

depends on the dialect, in northeastern brazilian dialect it's a nasalized i

[@Alkatraz581]

Portugués is broken spanish

[@XXRolando2008]

Portuguese and Spanish are broken Iberian.

[@arx3516]

And in italian and french is "gn"

[@skurinski]

AbraRf portuguese is older than spanish, sorry dude.

[@lupitaladechicagovlogs980]

I love your channel ! Saludos desde Chicago

[@ninadouglas6289]

¡Qué interesante! Me encantó la presentación y la voz del presentador.

[@LM11116]

imagine if other spanish "double letters" like ll and rr that are disputed and have different pronunciations than when on their own also had tildes - ll becomes l with a tilde and rr becomes r with a tilde. that would be interesting.

[@freeculture]

At least the "ch" letter got dropped... It used to be a separate letter and the old dictionaries would show it before C confusing the hell out of me (and computer sorting just didn't like it).

[@adolfojasso796]

I think both will be dropped eventualy, maybe all ll will pass to be y and all the rr will be r

[@agustinmango3152]

@@adolfojasso796 It has already happened..

[@LukasJediny]

in Slovak language we use accents on many letters, l and r included. L can either become Ľ or Ĺ, and R can become Ŕ (or even Ř in Czech language). If you want to, you can borrow ĺ and ŕ and use them in Spanish. Slovak people would be okay with that I think.

[@gunslingingbird74]

@@freeculture Ch comes between C and D.

[@gitanafox9852]

After using ñ all my life, I finally know it's story. So proud of my native lengua.

[@kerelasfinest4496]

Ñoño

[@kramarancko1107]

That’s kind of a retarded thing to be proud of

[@captainpancake8177]

@@kramarancko1107 how so?

[@kramarancko1107]

@@captainpancake8177 the fact I really need to explain this is kind of retarded

[@cacalover4253]

@@kramarancko1107 Ñ

[@noraphelan5598]

Holy crap this was interesting. Subscribed!

In Spanish this is “tilde”: ‘ This is virgulilla: ~ And this is dieresis: ö (the dots on the o)

[@bencekiss4693]

We use “NY” for “Ñ” in Hungary😃 It’s important to know that “NY” is ONE LETTER in the Hungarian alphabet!

[@kousvetkousvet4158]

We also use "NY" in Catalonia for the Catalan language

[@karaqakkzl]

We Vietnamese use "NH" for "Ñ" but it's more like diphthongs than a letter

[@aloysiuskurnia7643]

Won't expect less from folks who use "sz" for /s/

[@bencekiss4693]

@@aloysiuskurnia7643 😆 Yeeeep we Hungarian do use “sz” for the English /s/! BUT don’t flip it, because “zs” means /ʒ/ (like “ž” or "ж" in Russian)

[@orderscc]

Or 'ch', 'll', and 'rr' in Spanish. I can't find the source, but I recall reading an article where the Spanish Academy was going to demote those to two letters each, but the language authorities in at least one Latin American country were like, "you're not touch the alphabet in *our* country" and vowed to keep it (or all of them? IDK it was a while ago).

[@kaisseraugustus3503]

I´m proud to speak spanish as native language, despite of my english comment and my non-spanish nickname.

[@cefirodewinter9086]

Incredibilis

[@El_Cid_Campeador]

Tienes que aprender español

[@porygonyt8014]

Hola, Señor Agosto! ?Cómo estás?

[@Brakvash]

To be fair, the Iberian Peninsula was - and the Iberian dialects were - pretty romanized by the time the romans left, so I wouldn't put it against you to express pride in some distant Roman heritage.

[@lolproo]

Haha, you're crazy.

[@josequintero2627]

Just can't understand how that amount of ppl can dislike an informative/educational video

[@Firmus777]

Slavic languages also have this sound. Or at least it sounds the same to me. In Croatian it is written as "nj" and despite it clearly being composed of two letters, it is treated like a single letter, having its own place in the alphabet, taking up one box in crossword puzzles etc. Same with the letter "lj".

[@marvinsilverman4394]

similar to gn from italian or french or 'nh' from portuguese

[@b4byj3susm4n]

For Slavic languages, at least Polish had the sense to confine it to a single character space in the form of “ń”.

[@vojta4413]

In Czech it is written as "ň"

[@Noone-uw3mk]

In Portuguese we have the nh /ñ/ and the lh /λ/, but we don't treat them like letters, just digraphs.

[@Ciscogrande]

The so called "tilde" over Ñ is not called tilde either, it is a "virgulilla". And this "¨" is "diéresis". The only tilde is this "á, é, í, ó, ú". In any case amazing video, well done!

[@Gwydda]

But that's not the only virgulilla either; the *acento agudo is also a virgulilla*, and so is the apostrophe and so on. The terminology isn't nearly as simple as you'd like us have it :P

[@Ciscogrande]

Gwydda Nope, the acento agudo is not a virgulilla, not at least in Spanish ;)

[@Gwydda]

Check your Diccionario de la Real Academia, you'll find RAE differs with you.

[@Ciscogrande]

Gwydda RAE contradicts itself sometimes, because they also note the use that people give to some words. If we are being completely accurate, I would never say that a tilde is a virgulilla, and viceversa. It keep things simpler and is more accurate, in my opinion of course! Don't use RAE as a holy thing, nowadays is not that great.

[@Gwydda]

It's because dictionaries are not supposed to be prescriptive but descriptive. Even if you want to wage a war against language change (maybe because you think *your* way of speaking/thinking/ssaying certain things is the correct/right way of doing it, I'm afraid that's not how language works. So, if the word is being used that way, then that is what it means; it doesn't mean something that we'd wish it to mean or what it might have meant in some previous arbirtrary point in time. RAE has started to realize it, but a lot of Spanish speakers still think that there is only one, "correct" meaning or usage for words and other usages are "incorrect". It's heart-breaking to hear people say "nosotros/ellos/ahí no hablamos/no hablan bien" because there isn'r such a thing as "hablar mal".

[@Mladjasmilic]

Spanish and Serbian N and Н Ñ and Њ

[@sugarfrosted2005]

Oh yeah, it's a soft n. I didn't notice.

[@sion8]

Cool, good to know about that Serbian letter.

[@adamlatosinski5475]

Also, In Polish: N and Ń.

[@rokivulovic7598]

polish Ń has the same sound of Њ and Ñ ?

[@sion8]

Roki Vulović​​ At least with Polish yes ‹Ń› and ‹Ñ› make the same sound in their respective languages and orthographies.

[@staffy73]

What a wonderful informative and fun video about the history of that funny little “n with an eyebrow “ as my kids call it! I immediately subscribed 👍. Your vids are great for teaching my grandkids about different cultures and languages. I dream of them be multilingual, something I’ve always wanted to be and who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks 😉

[@megumi9467]

Long live Ñ, carajo!

[@pixelghostclyde8717]

Meanwhile in Italy, where I've heard scribes were paid by the letter, we put a "g" before the "n" to achieve the same result. "España", for example, is "Spagna".

[@lucassantossj]

PixelGhostClyde In Catalan, NY: Catalunya(Cataluña).

[@SolangeAbri]

Hey i'm from Argentina, we love italians in our country

[@lampoilropebombs0640]

Lasagna yeah I hate Pewdiepie

[@batuhan_a_kocak]

I've heard that for French. Someone said that that is the reason French has so many silent letters. But it is probably a legend

[@Rafaelinux]

But... that's the same amount of letters.

[@CraftQueenJr]

I showed this to my Spanish class, it was a nice reprove from the bad music videos the others were choosing. We had a substitute at the time by the way.

[@johnson6099]

I needed this explanation because for most of my life I just never knew

[@CalitmeDiondell]

Que bello vídeo, señor ✌️

[@jdsheleg8332]

Tilde, acento, y dieresis, son los nombres de los simbolos o marcas en español. To call "tilde" any mark will be incorrect.

[@SYFTV1]

would*

[@leandrogarciaphoto]

Josue Nieves he is speaking in english, not castellano.

[@RollOnToVictory]

* squiggly

[@huecosinfondo5048]

el acento no es un símbolo, es una marca invisible donde se hace énfasis

[@hr-g4640]

depende de el acento que la palabra tenga, XD ya se me olvidó como se llaman los dos tipos de acento

[@miguelangelmendezcarrillo6901]

I was taught in school that the mark over the “eñe” is actually called “virgulilla” and not tilde.

[@adrianmoreno8816]

Los signos de puntuación en letras en realidad son: Tilde: á,é,í,ó,ú Diéresis: ü Virgulilla: ñ

[@robertoh.20]

no seas tan virgillo

[@maria-melek]

Tenemos "ü"? Solo se que Turco lo tiene.

[@adrianmoreno8816]

@@maria-melek sí, para crear palabras como cigüeña, desagüe, paragüero, cigüeñal...

[@vito_1987]

I say it as someone who speaks Spanish, the way of pronouncing the Spanish in this video is very good! greetings from Argentina,! 🇦🇷

[@gonzalojimenez3484]

Que tenga que venir un inglés a explicarme de dónde viene la "ñ" es cuanto menos paradójico.

[@Myfscenes]

¿No te lo explicaron en el colegio? :/

[@arihel2]

¿a ti si?, por mi parte no tengo recuerdos de alguna explicacion del origen de la Ñ xd

[@RoseBerlitz]

A mi tampoco me lo explicaron xD

[@peksn]

Nah, es prueba de la globalización, cada vez me siento masnun ciudadano del mundo que no está atado a ninguna bandera :D

[@human.j.vitor9981]

Gonzalo Jiménez Que mierda que hasta algunos profesores se niegan a hablar sobre la "ñ" porque hasta ellos no lo saben!

[@milagrosmontero6873]

Un inglés diciendo "don" y "doña". Ya puedo morir en paz xD xD

[@johanherrera6413]

es latino o descendiente de latinos se le nota en el acento :D

[@radiozoto2006]

Tiene una pronunciación muy neutra, muy limpia del Español...

[@abrahamf8139]

Lo neutro se torna un tanto castellano en 5:14.

[@danbolivar3564]

Ridiculez, qué carajo tendrá que ver, no se. Auque te parezca mentira, existen norteamericanos que hablan muy bien el español, sin ser descendientes.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

He's a linguist, understanding pronunciation is his job. Obviously he's neither going to sound yankee nor dialectal.

[@theafellacomposer]

In the Philippines, being a colony of Spain for 333 years before we broke free in the late 1800s, when we're being taught the alphabet in school, we have the "ñ" right after "n" as well whilst in English subjects, "ñ" is not included when we're taught the alphabet. Strange

[@vincenttt8289]

*300 plus years, 333 years exactly

[@theafellacomposer]

@@vincenttt8289 Thanks! You can tell I sucked at history class without saying I sucked at history class

[@chubbybub6686]

I cannot wait to hear this

[@randomnepali7772]

"I'm gonna say the Ñ word."

[@gunslingingbird74]

¿Coño? 🤔

[@podemosurss8316]

Actually the n word comes from Spanish (it has no despective meaning or atribute in Spanish, just means "black").

[@sapere_aude525]

"Ñoño"

[@KurogamiProductions]

¿Ño? :v

[@XelenaX-wg2jr]

Ñandú 🤠

[@Frapegruit]

could you make a video about the german ß ? :)

[@NaVVtiLuSPS3]

It originates from a weird "s" that looked more like an "f" and a "z". It's a fun graph.

[@Frapegruit]

Ruaídhrí oh okay, thanks!

[@philiproyd6563]

I have been told by German speakers that the "ß" is actually a double "s" and that some Germans will spell their words containing "ss" instead of using the "ß" and it still means the same thing. I don't speak German, but this still fascinates me. Therefore, I second the motion on a video about the history of the German "ß".

[@jdp2]

rewboss has an excellent video about it titled "The curious ß".

[@wwoods66]

Called the "esszett" -- i.e. "sz".... Even though it represents 'ss'.

[@fueyo2229]

I'm a speaker of Asturleonese, and I can understand Old Spanish pretty well, better than an only Spanish speaker. Interesting that my language kept many things that fell in Spanish. Like "ca" is still used or we didn't aspirate the f's (facer, faba, fartar...) or the position of the object behind the verb (fálase, cóyelo, píngeste), it's also the only romance language which kept Neuter.

[@anirudhkashikar2300]

you have a gifted voice.

[@doppelrutsch9540]

Congrats for 100k subs!

[@NativLang]

Thank you!!

[@ferretyluv]

Just 50 more and he gets a play button!

[@burtonlang]

Sorta interesting that Spain is famous for using the (cross-linguistically) rare-ish sound /θ/, when the same is not true of English in general.

[@coltron3030]

english hard and soft /θ/ is kind of different than spanish. like the way /θ/ is in place of s or blends with it, might have to do with influence from arabic... although in arabic it is a type of d that i am thinking of that makes /θ/ sound sometimes

[@burtonlang]

coltron3030 In the dialects of Spanish I'm referring to, /θ/ is not in place of /s/; the two sounds contrast each other just as in English, so that _la casa_ ("the house") is pronounced /la 'kasa/, while _la caza_ ("the hunt") is pronounced /la 'kaθa/.

[@alejandravixx6368]

Im a native spanish speaker and nobody has told me this, I mean I do know about el cantar del mio cid but not about ñ so cool

[@adrirodriguez7156]

alejandra vixx Ni en el colegio?

[@OjaioFansub]

no es el unico

[@mufalmewww]

Latin had a lot of accents depicted by unique chars ontop of letters too, great vid

[@alisson_duron]

FYI: En la palabra pedigüeñería se incluyen todas las tildes del español: la diéresis, la tilde del acento, la virgulilla de la ñ y el punto de la i, y significa 'cualidad de pedigüeño'.

[@TiagoH1710]

Que es pedigüeño?

[@alisson_duron]

@@TiagoH1710 Adjetivo. Que pide mucho. Uso: coloquial, se emplea también como sustantivo. Sinónimo: pidón. (Asociado a una persona que pide y pide dinero en la calle.) Col. Referido a persona, pedigüeña, que pide con frecuencia e importunidad.

[@nochetoledana4630]

I got to come to an english video in order to learn more about my own language... Oh, boy.

[@tomasrestrepo5572]

Yo también we :v

[@aurealfantasy3127]

Todo por no leer.

[@lucasfer736]

Por ignorante

[@lucasfer736]

No digas estas cosas porque después unos cuantos giles se creen superiores

[@El_Cid_Campeador]

Jajaja

[@vesperide598]

Oye, ciertamente quiero felicitarte a tí y a todo tu equipo de todo corazón. Me encanta este canal porque se aprende demasiado; admiro en sobremanera el modo en que imitas con tan plausible precisión tan variopintas lenguas y quiero agradecerte encarecidamente por enseñarme a mí, que soy un niño, tantas cosas. I really appreciate your job in this channel and I wish you lucky.

[@salva7929]

Ñ

[@Savi_I]

As a Spanish L2 speaker this was very interesting and Informative 😊

[@levka4947]

EN: wow, your spanish pronuciation is beautiful! ES: ¡guau, tu pronunciación del español es increíble!

[@RomanSegovia]

Calla bilingüe

[@levka4947]

@@RomanSegovia Ne mia amiko. Mi shatas parolis multain lingvoin ^^

[@user-lw8qy8kj7c]

One interesting thing I realized while watching this video - if all European scholars had adopted a system of using diacritics to represent extra letters, the Latin alphabet could have turned into an abugida.

[@creativohugo]

now repeat that in spanish please /s

[@IndianaJones664]

Una cosa interesante de que me di cuenta mientras miraba este vídeo - si todos los eruditos europeos hubiesen adoptado un sistema de utilizar los tildes para representar letras adicionales, el alfabeto latin podría haberse convertido en un abugida. No soy nativo, puede que haya errores.

[@creativohugo]

I was only joking with that request, but thank you for trying though :-)

[@alejandromatosanguis5267]

Niga? Really? XD

[@nenelopez3026]

Wow, no lo pensé así, pero es cierto!!!

[@jesusmariagarciaarejula9032]

Thank you, very interesting and instructing. I would like to contribute by pointing up that "Cid" could be the Castillian transcription of the Arabic word "Sidi /si:'di:/", that is "Señor" in Spanish - "Sir" in English. Most probably, this title was appointed to Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the true and full name of "el Cid", by the Moors who acknowledged him as their Master when he was ruling a part of the Spanish territory in the Southeast of Spain, close to the present city of Valencia.

[@PC_Simo]

5:05 Love the little emoticon formed by these diacritics 😆.

[@profegeppert4412]

Could you make one for the history of Ll? My class really enjoyed this video :)