Why does Paralee call all accents tildes?

Question

Paralee always talks about tildes, rather than accents, even when it is an acute accent, rather than a tilde. Is that because tilde means any type of accent in Spanish?

Thanks for that little picture, togtog. I just copied it into my notebook. And yes, that's a great question! - Findy, Jul 27, 2013

But one is incorrect... si = if, sí = yes. - Tosh, Jul 28, 2013

Thanks for pointing that one out, Tosh! - togtog, Jul 28, 2013

Answer 1

Yes, tilde means accent. It's also used for the ñ, which, however is not thought of as an accent, but rather as a letter in it's own right, just as in Swedish we know å, ä and ö to be letters, whereas the arrogant Englishspeakers think they are a,a and o with dots on..

Good thing many of us here are just English speakers, but not arrogant English speakers. lol - Findy, Jul 27, 2013

I think they represent "aa" "ae" and "oe" :) the Danish ones å æ ø do. - ian-hill, Jul 27, 2013

See, Ian, typical arrogant Englsish speaker! - annierats, Jul 27, 2013

Well, one has to get used to it that a Swedish o is oo, whereas the o is represented by å . The gap between written and spoken Swedish can only be beaten by the English way of spelling. Heaven be praised for the very sensible spelling of Spanish! - Castor77, Jul 28, 2013

No, you're totally wrong, Sweish spells very like Spanish, we have one symbol for each sound and never put things like bough, dough or mow, bow through.. - annierats, Jul 28, 2013

Hey steady on Annie , I am totally arrogant but not an English speaker , credit due where credit lies mate. - ray76, Jul 28, 2013

Æ = ae Å = aa Ø = oe so there - who's an ignorant English speaker. ? - ian-hill, Jul 28, 2013

Ok, Ian, don't take on, but what i mean is, you sspell so complicatedly in English.. - annierats, Jul 28, 2013

annie...don't get yer air off...I'm English, but not arrogant and I can spell, but not in Swedish l0l - 0095ca4c, Jul 28, 2013

Answer 2

Yo- I

??????? - chileno, Jul 27, 2013

Tickl3r - you are very random at times. What does that have to do with the price of cheese? - togtog, Jul 28, 2013

I guess because the y in yo does not have a tilde even though there is a heavy accent on it , and is pronounced a little differently than in other usages , so the price of cheese just went up considerably .Stilton is now $100 a kilo. - ray76, Jul 28, 2013

What are the price of beans in China? :) - 0083f5dc, Jul 28, 2013

Answer 3

I know that here in the UK, we use the word tilde to mean the accent mark that you see above the ñ in Spanish. Apparently, the word originates with the Latin word titulus, which means title. Apparently, the name of the letter ñ in Spanish is eñe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilde

Yes, it's eñe, but atilde is used to write it, the other accetns are also tildes! - annierats, Jul 28, 2013

Answer 4

Actually, the mark above the ñ in Spanish is an actal part of the letter, not really a separate mark. To understand this, you must look at the derivation of the letter eñe. In most romance languages, the use of the tilde was a shorthand to indicate omitted letters in a word. Or as a signal for a pronunciation change, so in those cases, it is part of a letter- tilde pair, and not as one letter.

In Spanish, though, the ñ developed on a different path. At one time, the language used a "nn" for the sound we associate today with eñe. To save space, monks and scibes began to stack the n's atop one another. Over time, the top letter just became a stylized squiggle, identical to a tilde, but not really the same thing. It is just the representation of a single letter.