LingoflyÑ ñ — eñe
«eñe» is a consonant of the Basque script, read as “ny as in canyon”. One sound: "ny" as in canyon. For example, in the word “Iruña” — Pamplona. The Basque alphabet has 27 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. A rare letter and always historical: Iruña is the Basque name of Pamplona. In the alphabet it sits in the “soft sounds and the trill” group.
In short
| Character | Ñ ñ |
| Name | eñe |
| Sound | ny as in canyon |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 15th of 32: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are n and o.
How to type Ñ ñ
- On a phone: press and hold n on the keyboard, and ñ appears among the variants. If it does not, add the Basque keyboard in the keyboard settings.
- In Word on Windows: type U+00F1 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 00F1.
- Unicode code points: ñ — U+00F1, Ñ — U+00D1. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
One sound: "ny" as in canyon
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- IruñaPamplona
The character in the “soft sounds and the trill” group
ñ and tt are palatal sounds with a y-glide; they grew out of baby talk and affectionate speech. A matching pair for tt exists for d too, but it is met only a handful of times. rr is a trill between vowels. No word begins with a trill. Native words never start with r, and borrowed ones get a vowel in front — errege, arrosa.
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «eñe» it is “ny as in canyon”, as in the word “Iruña”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 27 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Basque character ñ read?
As “ny as in canyon” — it is a consonant of the Basque script. One sound: "ny" as in canyon. For example, in the word “Iruña” — Pamplona.
What is the letter ñ called?
Eñe. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Basque script: it is called “eñe” and reads as “ny as in canyon”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.