2966: Ñ Ü Å → Letters on Top Feb 3, 2025

The letter Ç [cedille] originates as a C with a Z written underneath, but rather than being anomalous, this is how lots of variants and diacritics are born. The forms are <Ñ> <Ü> <Å> are all formed from writing one letter above another to represent a unique sound. In the case of the Nordic <å>, this is , unsurprisingly, an O written over the A; in the case of the others it is less immediately obvious.

The German <ü><ö> and <ä> can all also be written with an <e> afterwards (minus the umlaut) for the most part. The umlaut diacritic was formed from historically writing the letter <e> above, such as <uͤ>, and over time this was simplified into the two dots today. This is not to be confused with <œ> or <æ>.

Similarly, <ñ> was formed as a result of writing <N> over an <n>, or in Portuguese, nasalized vowels like in Lisbão (Lisbon) which eventually became the tilde. Other languages that use a macron to represent doubled letters went through a different process. In Spanish, double-letter digraphs like <ñ> are considered a separate letter in the alphabet, as is <rr> and <ll>.