<P> Portuguese, however, uses not ñ but nh . It uses the tilde on the vowels a and o . So as not to sacrifice two of the tightly limited keys to ã Ã õ Õ, the decision was made to make the ~ a separate "dead" character in which the carriage holding the paper did not move . Dead keys, which had a notch cut out to avoid hitting a mechanical linkage that triggered carriage movement, were used for characters that were intended to be combined (overstruck). </P> <P> On mechanical typewriters, Spanish keyboards (the first, or one of the first, non-English keyboards) had a dead key, which contained the acute accent (_́), used over any vowel, and the dieresis (_̈), used only over u . It was a simple matter to create a dead key for a Portuguese keyboard (created later than the Spanish one) to be overstruck with a and o and so the ~ was born as a typographical character, which did not exist previously as a type or hot - lead printing character . That was probably a product of the first and leading manufacturer of (mechanical) typewriters, Remington . </P> <P> As indicated by the etymological origin of the word "tilde" in English, this symbol has been closely associated with the Spanish language . The connection stems from the use of the tilde above the letter "n" to form "ñ" in Spanish, a feature shared by only a few other languages, all historically connected to Spanish . This peculiarity can help non-native speakers quickly identify a text as being written in Spanish with little chance of error . In addition, most native speakers, although not all, use the word "español" to refer to their language . Particularly during the 1990s, Spanish - speaking intellectuals and news outlets demonstrated support for the language and the culture by defending this letter against globalisation and computerisation trends that threatened to remove it from keyboards and other standardised products and codes . The Instituto Cervantes, founded by Spain's government to promote the Spanish language internationally, chose as its logo a highly stylised Ñ with a large tilde . The 24 - hour news channel CNN in the US later adopted a similar strategy on its existing logo for the launch of its Spanish - language version . And similarly to the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Spain men's national basketball team is nicknamed ÑBA . </P> <P> Confusingly, in Spanish itself the word tilde is used more generally for diacritics, including the stress - marking acute accent . The diacritic ~ is more commonly called la virgulilla or la tilde de la eñe, and is not considered an accent mark in Spanish, but rather simply a part of the letter ñ (much like the dot over the i). </P>

What is the line above an n in spanish called