What is the name of the diacritical mark in Spanish which is placed over a letter 'n' to soften its pronunciation, e.g. in the word 'señor'?
Tilde nicknamed "ÑBA". Confusingly, in Spanish itself the word "tilde" is used more generally for diacritics, including the stress-marking acute accent. The diacritic "~" is more commonly called "la virgulilla" or "la tilde de la eñe", and is not considered an accent mark in Spanish, but rather simply a part of the letter ñ (much like the dot over the i). In some languages, the tilde is used as a diacritical mark ( ˜ ) placed over a letter to indicate a change in pronunciation, such as nasalization. It was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, as a
Cedilla Cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish), also known as cedilha (from Portuguese) or cédille (from French), is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese, it is used only under the "c", and the entire letter is called respectively "c trencada" (i.e. "broken C"), "c cédille", and "c cedilhado" (or "c cedilha", colloquially). The tail originated in Spain as the bottom half of a miniature cursive z. The word "cedilla" is the diminutive of the Old Spanish name for this letter, "ceda" (zeta).