Who Wants To Say ‘Feliz Ano’? Users Online Sound Off on the Cultural Impact of Losing the ‘Ñ’
Spanish is a beautiful language spoken by more than 43,000,000 people in the United States. Yet, the ñ is one of the letters that is not used regularly for those with names that include it.
Losing the ‘ñ’ in a name is tantamount to losing a bit of your heritage. Imagine being unable to spell your name correctly because part of the world has decided that a letter just isn’t necessary.
Not to mention a world, the Internet, built in a way that doesn’t allow a letter to be used in something as common as a URL.
Living without the ‘ñ’ in your name is basically like living with another identity. It makes it impossible for people ever to pronounce your name correctly. After all, it is Peña, not Pena. It’s Muñoz, not Munoz.
It’s really no different than removing or replacing letters in anyone else’s name. Imagine a world where the ‘ph’ in English names were all switched to ‘f.’ No more Stephanie, instead, meet Stefanie. Stephen? More like Stefen.
Living without the ‘ñ’ can make it dangerous for less knowledgeable Spanish speakers
Recently, Somos Mitú posted a video talking with Ximena Sariñana, a Mexican multi-hyphenate entertainer, about life without the ‘ñ.’ She explained that removing an entire letter from the language is a disservice to our culture and language.
The ‘ñ’ is arguably one of the most important letters in the Spanish language. After all, the ‘ñ’ does have its own key on the Spanish keyboard. One tap and you can make the letter that changes the meaning of a word.
We love to celebrate Nuevos Años, but if you are celebrating Nuevos Anos, well, that is another vibe entirely. Quite frankly, our Abuelas would be stunned if a friend wished her a Feliz Ano Nuevo.
Another word that entirely relies on the ‘ñ’ is uña. Without the tilde, you are just left with una, but una what? You can’t scratch someone with an una, but you can with an uña.
Mitú fans are sharing their own experiences of living without the ‘ñ’
The erasure is so deep and widespread that even American Latine people are willingly removing the accent from their name. Por ejemplo, Bella Hadid’s boyfriend, Adan Banuelos. In an Instagram post celebrating his father’s birthday, Adan wishes “Ascencion Bañuelos” a happy birthday. Yet, Adan’s website does not mention the accent.
Now, this isn’t Adan’s fault. We do live in a digital world that holds onto the white supremacist mentality that makes accents all but impossible to include. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could include your real name in your Instagram handle? Or even in something so basic and popular as a URL?
The tech world has been able to create so many incredible things for people to feel included and represented. However, most DNS protocols do not support accents. If a system can be made to support and create things, why can we not create a DNS protocol that embraces the accents in URLs? There has to be a way to make this happen, at least for Instagram and Twitter handles.
