# Ñ
**Ñ** (lowercase **ñ**, Spanish name *eñe*) is a letter of the [Latin script](https://www.edgepedia.org/latin-script) formed by adding a tilde to the letter N, used in the Spanish alphabet to represent the palatal nasal sound /ɲ/, similar to the "ny" of the English word "canyon". It is treated as a distinct letter for sorting and indexing, not as a variant of N, and it is also used in Galician, Basque, and several indigenous languages of the Americas.[1](https://www.unicodecharacter.org/u%2B00f1)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Sound | The palatal nasal /ɲ/, described by the Real Academia Española as the only graphic representation of this phoneme within Spanish[2](https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/91059/files/b123174302_C049503848.pdf) |
| Unicode | U+00D1 (Ñ, uppercase) and U+00F1 (ñ, lowercase), in the Latin-1 Supplement block; canonical decomposition of the base letter plus the combining tilde U+0303[1](https://www.unicodecharacter.org/u%2B00f1) |
| Encoding | UTF-8 bytes 0xC3 0xB1 (ñ) and 0xC3 0x91 (Ñ); HTML entity ñ for the lowercase form[3](https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00f1/index.htm) |
| Unicode history | Both forms were added in Unicode 1.1.0 (June 1993); the Unicode 1.0 name was "N TILDE"[3](https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00f1/index.htm) |
| Dictionary status | The ñ did not enter the dictionary of the Real Academia Española until 1803[4](https://www.fundeu.es/noticia/cual-es-el-origen-de-la-letra-n-y-que-otras-lenguas-la-utilizan/) |
| Alphabet size | After the 2010 withdrawal of "ch" and "ll", the Spanish alphabet consists of 27 letters, ñ among them[5](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/las-dos-letras-que-la-rae-decidio-excluir-del-abecedario-n/) |
## Origin
The letter descends from a medieval abbreviation. Medieval Spanish chose the digraph *nn* to represent the new palatal nasal phoneme, which did not exist in Latin, and scribes usually wrote it in abbreviated form: a single n with a virgulilla, a small stroke, above it. The sign is described by the academies' orthography as genuinely Spanish, and Galician and Basque adopted the same letter.[6](https://academia.org.do/2020/09/04/ortoescritura-20/) The small upper n evolved into the tilde that marks the letter today, and Spanish colonization carried the letter into some indigenous languages of the Americas, including Quechua, Aymara, and Guaraní.[6](https://academia.org.do/2020/09/04/ortoescritura-20/)
## Status in Spanish
Most languages written with the Latin script treat letters with diacritical marks as variations of a base letter rather than as independent letters of the alphabet.[7](https://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/ch07.pdf) Spanish accords ñ full letter status: the Unicode CLDR locale data for Spanish lists the main letters as a sequence in which ñ appears as its own entry between n and o.[8](https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/45/summary/es.html) The letter keeps its own section in dictionaries and alphabetical ordering.
**The 2010 reform.** In 2010 the Real Academia Española removed the digraphs "ch" and "ll" from the alphabet, judging that they are digraphs, two letters representing one phoneme, rather than letters; both had been introduced in the 1754 orthography edition alongside ñ. With the departure of those two and the earlier addition of "w" in 1969, the Spanish alphabet settled at 27 letters, with ñ retained.[5](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/las-dos-letras-que-la-rae-decidio-excluir-del-abecedario-n/) The 2010 orthography, presented on 28 November 2010 at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, was the first work produced jointly by the 22 institutions of the Association of Spanish Language Academies.[9](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/02/13/asi-se-gesto-el-divorcio-de-la-c-y-la-h-como-y-por-que-desaparecio-la-ch-del-diccionario-cadena-ser/)
## Digital encoding and the 1993 dispute
In Unicode, Ñ and ñ occupy code points U+00D1 and U+00F1 in the Latin-1 Supplement block, a layout Unicode follows from ISO/IEC 8859-1 for Latin letters up to U+00FF.[1](https://www.unicodecharacter.org/u%2B00f1) • [10](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode18.0.0/core-spec/chapter-7/) In that one-byte encoding Ñ is the single byte 0xD1, the same value in [Windows-1252](https://www.edgepedia.org/windows-1252), and the UTF-8 encoding is 0xC3 0x91.[11](https://unicodes.io/symbols/latin-capital-letter-n-with-tilde/) The letter can also be written as the base letter n followed by the combining tilde U+0303, and the two forms are canonically equivalent, though the precomposed form is more common for compatibility with legacy systems.[1](https://www.unicodecharacter.org/u%2B00f1)
The letter was the object of a European policy dispute in the early 1990s. As Spain implemented European keyboard standards, writers including [Mario Vargas Llosa](https://www.edgepedia.org/mario-vargas-llosa) publicly defended the eñe, with Vargas Llosa arguing that the discussion concerned more than "an n with a tilde" and describing the letter as a cultural advance of a Romance language that expresses with one letter a sound other languages still write with two. In April 1993 the Spanish government invoked the cultural exceptions of the [Maastricht Treaty](https://www.edgepedia.org/maastricht-treaty) and promulgated a Real Decreto that preserved the letter on keyboards and for any future use.[12](https://as.com/meristation/reportajes/europa-queria-eliminar-la-letra-ene-y-mario-vargas-llosa-y-gabriel-garcia-marquez-la-salvaron-n/)
## Typing
On Windows the letter can be entered with the Alt codes Alt+0241 or Alt+164 for ñ.[3](https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00f1/index.htm) On Mac and mobile devices, holding the base letter offers supported variants, and the Mac Character Viewer or a language keyboard provides direct access.[13](https://diacriticalmarks.com/marks/tilde/)
## References
1. [U+00F1 "ñ" Latin Small Letter N with Tilde, unicodecharacter.org](https://www.unicodecharacter.org/u%2B00f1)
2. [Informe de la Real Academia Española sobre la consulta relativa a la letra "ñ"](https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/91059/files/b123174302_C049503848.pdf)
3. [Unicode Character 'LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE' (U+00F1), fileformat.info](https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00f1/index.htm)
4. [¿Cuál es el origen de la letra ñ y qué otras lenguas la utilizan?, FundéuRAE](https://www.fundeu.es/noticia/cual-es-el-origen-de-la-letra-n-y-que-otras-lenguas-la-utilizan/)
5. [Las dos letras que la RAE decidió excluir del abecedario, AS](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/las-dos-letras-que-la-rae-decidio-excluir-del-abecedario-n/)
6. [Ortoescritura, Academia Dominicana de la Lengua](https://academia.org.do/2020/09/04/ortoescritura-20/)
7. [The Unicode Standard, Chapter 7 (Latin)](https://www.unicode.org/versions/latest/ch07.pdf)
8. [Locale Data Summary for Spanish [es], Unicode CLDR 45](https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/45/summary/es.html)
9. [Así se gestó el divorcio de la 'c' y la 'h', Cadena SER](https://cadenaser.com/nacional/2025/02/13/asi-se-gesto-el-divorcio-de-la-c-y-la-h-como-y-por-que-desaparecio-la-ch-del-diccionario-cadena-ser/)
10. [Chapter 7 – Unicode 18.0.0 Core Specification](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode18.0.0/core-spec/chapter-7/)
11. [Latin capital letter N with tilde, unicodes.io](https://unicodes.io/symbols/latin-capital-letter-n-with-tilde/)
12. [Europa quería eliminar la letra eñe y Mario Vargas Llosa y Gabriel García Márquez la salvaron, AS](https://as.com/meristation/reportajes/europa-queria-eliminar-la-letra-ene-y-mario-vargas-llosa-y-gabriel-garcia-marquez-la-salvaron-n/)
13. [Tilde: ñ, ã, õ and combining U+0303, diacriticalmarks.com](https://diacriticalmarks.com/marks/tilde/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Writing and notation systems › Latin script*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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