Agustín Barahona wrote:

>
> El Sat, 08 Oct 2005 22:16:44 -0000, grendl löfkvist <grendl_lofkvist@...> escribió:
>
> >Thanks for clarifying this issue!
>
> Nothing at all.
>
> >tilde virgulilla was an historical abbreviation (perhaps similar to the
> >combination "DE" that you sometimes see in medieval manuscripts and
> >inscriptions?)... that's something I'd like to learn more about.
>
> I a certain general way one could say "yes it is". But the type of abbreviation of medieval Latin "DE" is not the same that device used in "nn" > "ñ". With "DE" we have a sort of monogram, i.e., a D with a _superscripta_ E resulting in a sole complex sign. With "ñ" we have a new sign different from de original one indicating that another "n" was not writen there but might be read. Summarizing, it is a way to save horizontal space in both cases but using different devices.

I'll try one more time.

In contemporary Spanish, the sign <ñ> does NOT indiate "that another /n/
was not written there but might be read." (Unlike in German, where <e>
after a letter may substitute for an umlaut on top of it, you cannot
spell <cañon> as <cannon>.) It is the ONLY graphic distinction between
the letters for the two nasals, the dental and the palatal. The tilde IS
thus the sign for the palatal feature of that phoneme. Just as the
doubling of <l> IS the sign of the palatal feature of the /L/ phoneme
and the <h> (was it? I don't have the earlier postings) IS the sign of
the palatal feature in the phoneme represented by whatever digraph it
was.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...