The present Doodle artwork, illustrated by Barcelona-based guest artist Min, honors the consonant Ñ (pronounced “enye”). The lone letter in the Spanish alphabet in order that began in Spain, the Ñ isn’t just a letter however a representation of Hispanic heritage and identity also.
The Ñ’s story began with 12th-century Spanish scribes. While hand-copying Latin manuscripts, these scholars of the Middle Ages concocted an plan to save time and parchment by shortening words with double letters. They combined the two considers along with one and scrawled on top a tiny “n”—a symbol now known as a ”virgulilla” or tilde—to signify the change. Thus, “annus,” Latin for “year,” evolved into the Spanish “año.”
In 1803, it was officially entered into the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary, and in 1993, Spain passed legislation to ensure its inclusion in computer keyboards on the grounds of its insuppressible cultural significance. In 2010, the United Nations pronounced April 23 every day to annually celebrate the Spanish language, quite possibly the most usually spoken on the world.
Today, the letter Ñ appears in excess of 17,700 Spanish words, carving out a fundamental role within the language and Hispanic culture.