◌̃

See also: ~ [U+007E TILDE], ˜ [U+02DC SMALL TILDE], ◌͠◌, ◌ۤ, ◌̰, ◌̴, and ◌͌

◌̃ U+0303, ̃ COMBINING TILDE ← ◌̂ [U+0302] Combining Diacritical Marks ◌̄ → [U+0304]

Translingual

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. (IPA) Nasalization.

   The French term "bon vivant" is pronounced [bɔ̃vivɑ̃].

2. (UPA) Strong nasalization. Cf. ⟨◌̰⟩ for weak nasalization.
3. (Lithuanian dialectology) Marks a stressed syllable with "rising tone".

Usage notes

(IPA): Distinguish two stacked nasal tildes (strong nasalization, [◌̃̃]) from a double tilde: ⟨◌͌⟩.

Estonian

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. A diacritical mark of the Latin script, called tilde (“tilde”) in Estonian, and found on Õ/õ.

Greenlandic

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. (in the old orthography) Used over a vowel to indicate gemination of both that vowel and the following consonant.

Latin

Etymology

Developed in cursive writing from n atop another letter.

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. Written on a letter, usually a vowel, in place of an omitted n or m.

   cũ — cum

   ī̃fluente — īnfluente

   ñ — nōn

   quīcũque — quīcumque or quīcunque

Descendants

• → Old English: ◌̃
  • Middle English: ◌̃
    • English: ◌̃
• Old French: ◌̃
  • Middle French: ◌̃
• → German: ◌̃
• Portuguese: ◌̃
• Spanish: ◌̃

Middle English

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. Written on a letter, usually a vowel, in place of an omitted n or m.
   • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffe’s Bible, MS Egerton 617.)‎^[1], published c. 1390–1397, 8:7, page 20r, column 2:

     […] ne floodis ſchul not prowẽ it doũ.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Descendants

• English: ◌̃

Middle French

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. Written on a letter, usually a vowel, in place of an omitted n or m.

   ã — an

   ẽ — en

Middle Vietnamese

The 17th-century form of the Portuguese tilde, used in Middle Vietnamese.

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. A diacritical mark of the Latin script, called dấu sóng or dấu lưỡi câu in Vietnamese, and apex in Latin. Used to indicate the [ŋ͡m] allophone of a syllable-coda /ŋ/, which is now spelled ng.

Usage notes

In Unicode, the perispomene ῀, called dấu ngã in Vietnamese and used as a tone mark, was misidentified as the tilde, conflicting with proper encoding of the dấu sóng. The two had different graphic forms when the Vietnamese Latin alphabet was created in the 17th century.

The tilde was most commonly used on the letters o and u, which triggered the [ŋ͡m] allophone of a syllable-coda /ŋ/. However, it was occasionally used as an abbreviation of ng on the vowel letters ơ and ư as well, where it had the pronunciation [ŋ].

The tilde (dấu sóng) and the perispomene (dấu ngã) could occur on a syllable together. When the vowel of the syllable was written with two letters, the perispomene tone mark would be placed on the first and the nasal tilde on the second. When they occurred on a single letter, the tilde was placed immediately above the letter and the perispomene above the tilde.

Old French

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. Written on a letter, usually a vowel, in place of an omitted n or m.

   ã — an

   cointemẽt — cointement

   ẽ — en

Descendants

• Middle French: ◌̃

Portuguese

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. A diacritical mark of the Latin script, called til (“tilde”) in Portuguese, and found on Ã/ã and Õ/õ.

Usage notes

• In the letter a, forms ã with the sound /ɐ̃/ followed by a semivowel or word-finally, as in avelã and canção, or in words derived from those, as in maçãzeira.
• In the letter o, forms õ with the sound /õ/ followed by a semivowel, as in canções and põem.
• Additionally, the same diacritical mark has had other uses in the past:
  • In the letter u, forms ũ with the sound /ũ/ followed by a vowel, as in hũa.
  • Abbreviation of m or n in the syllable coda, as in cõtãto (for contanto) and cõ (for com).
  • In the letter q, forms q̃ as an abbreviation of que and derivatives, as in q̃ for que, porq̃ for porque and paraq̃ for para que.
• The tilde can appear in nonstressed or stressed vowels alike:
  • A tilde can occur in an unstressed syllable in the same word as the acute or circumflex accent, as in sótão, órgão and bênção.
  • Multiple tildes can occur in augmentatives, as in aviãozão and leãozão.
  • In words with the suffixes -zinho (forms diminutives) and -mente (forms adverbs from adjectives, like the English suffix -ly), the stressed syllable changes and thus normally accents would be dropped, as in pé, pezinho; pálido, palidamente. That does not happen with the tilde: irmã, irmãzinha; alemã, alemãmente.

References

• Cláudio Moreno (19 May 2009), “til não é acento”, in sualíngua‎^[2] (in Portuguese), archived from the original on 26 September 2013

Spanish

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. A diacritical mark of the Latin script, called virgulilla (“tilde”) in Spanish, and found on Ñ/ñ.
   • 2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, in The Guardian‎^[3] (in English), archived from the original on 4 April 2025:

     California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸).

Yoruba

Diacritical mark

◌̃

1. (obsolete) A diacritical mark of the Latin script, called àmì fàágùn (“lengthend mark”). Formerly used to indicate any sequence of tones on extended vowels

See also

tone marks

• ◌̀
• ◌́
• ◌̂ (obsolete)
• ◌̄
• ◌̌ (obsolete)