Ny (digraph)

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 (). 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, 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. 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''.Estudio de Filolochía Aragonesa
Propuesta Ortografica de l'Academia de l'Aragonés
Edicions Dichitals de l'Academia de l'Aragonés, Zaragoza, 2010.

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'' 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. 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 acronyms 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 Malay, ''ny'' represents the palatal nasal ; for example, Spain 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.

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

See also

* Catalan alphabet
* Hungarian alphabet
* ñ (énye)

References

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