Ny is a digraph in a number of languages such as Catalan, Ganda, Filipino/Tagalog, Hungarian, Swahili and Malay. In most of these languages, including all of the ones named above, it denotes the

palatal nasal The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom ...

(). To represent the palatal nasal in other languages, the letter nj is used, such as in Albanian and the countries using Gaj's Latin alphabet and the countries that make up the former Yugoslavia. It has had widespread use for languages of

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

, though in some countries, the IPA letter '' ɲ'' is now used. It is sometimes used in modern Spanish where '' ñ'' cannot be used, such as in earlier computer programming or Internet domain names. FAQ about .es domain names: . ''N'' and ''ny'' are mentioned as substitutes for ''ñ''.

Aragonese

The writing of the palatal nasal in Aragonese has been a matter of debate since the first orthographic codification of the language (''grafía de Uesca'') in 1987 by the '' Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa'' at a convention in

Huesca Huesca (; ) is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon between 1096 and 1118. It is also the capital of the Spanish Huesca (province), ...

. Medieval Aragonese had used several different digraphs, but the two most common spellings used were ''ñ'' (as in Spanish) or ''ny'' (as in Catalan). ''Ñ'' was the one chosen and has been used in almost all texts of the last decades, but the subject remained controversial, and some writers continued to promote the use of the digraph ''ny''. The use of ''ny'' was also proposed in an alternative Aragonese orthography, the ''grafía SLA'' devised in 2004 by the ''Sociedat de Lingüistica Aragonesa'' in 2004. According to the 2010 ''Orthographic Proposal'' of the Academia de l'Aragonés, created in 2006, the palatal nasal phoneme should be written as ''ny''. The 2023 academic orthography of Aragonese allows both spellings according to personal preference.Academia Aragonesa de la Lengua - Instituto de l'Aragonés Ortografía de l'aragonés
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Catalan

In Catalan, ''ny'' is not considered a single letter but a consonantal digraph (''n'' followed by ''y'') to represent . The letter ''y'', in Catalan, is used only to form ''ny'' (except in some foreign words) and has no other purpose. It is found in any position in a word: at the beginning (''nyap'' "rubbish", ''nyaufar'' "to dent"), in intervocalic position (''Catalunya'' "Catalonia"; ''canya'' "reed", "steem") and at the end of a word (''any'' "year", ''estany'' "lagoon", ''seny'' "sense").

Hungarian

''Ny'' is the twenty-third letter of the Hungarian

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

. Its name is ''eny'' (), and it represents the palatal nasal (). Even mere sequences of ''n'' and ''y'' that represent different sounds are considered instances of this letter; this holds true in

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

s as well. Below are examples of Hungarian words that use the letter ''ny'' along with their English translations: *anya = ''mother'' *enyém = ''mine'' *annyi = ''so much'' *anyós = ''mother-in-law'' *esernyő = ''umbrella'' *zsivány = ''knave''

Malay

In Malaysian and Indonesian, ''ny'' represents the

; for example,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

is called ''Spanyol'' (compare with ''España'' in Spanish). Until 1972, this digraph was spelled ''nj'' in the Indonesian standard.

Spanish

In Old Spanish scripts, the graph ''ny'' was widely used, along with ''nn'' and ''ni'', to represent the same palatal sound as Catalan, ; however since standardization it has been replaced with '' ñ''. Despite this, ''ny'' may be found in modern Spanish where ''ñ'' is not available, such as in earlier computer programming or Internet domain names. Similarly, ''ny'' is also used in

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew script: ), also known as Ladino or Judezmo or Spaniolit, is a Romance language derived from Castilian Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain, and then after the Edict of Expulsion spreading ...

Swahili

In Swahili, ny represents the palatal nasal /ɲ/. As other consonant sounds, it can only appear at the beginning of a syllable. Examples: * Kenya * Kinywa = mouth * Nyoka = snake * Nyota = star * Mnyama / wanyama = animal / animals * Nyama = meat * Punyeto = masturbation

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ny (Digraph) Catalan language Hungarian language Latin-script digraphs