Ñ or eñe, (Spanish enye) represents an n sound followed by a y. It is the fifteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet, alphabetized between N and O. Though English keyboard schemes classify it as an N with a tilde, it is a separate letter in the Spanish.
Historically, ñ represented two N's, written as an N with a smaller N, the tilde ~, over it. For example, the Spanish word año (year) is derived from Latin ANNVS.
In Spanish and some other languages (for example Aymara, Quechua, Tagalog, Basque, Galician) whose orthographies were created under Spanish influence, it represents a voiced palatal nasal. It may also roughly be represented or pronounced as ny, e.g. piñata -> pinyata. Other Romance languages have this sound as well, expressed by nh in Portuguese, ny in Catalan, and gn (like lasagna) in Italian and French.
It is used in a number of English words of Spanish origin, such as jalapeño, piña colada, and piñata, though these are often spelled in English with an n instead, due to the absence of the ñ from the English alphabet. The Spanish word cañón, however, became the English word canyon. Many people from Spanish-speaking countries who have emigrated to English-speaking countries, such as Carlos Castaneda, have also anglicized their names by changing ñ into n.
The letter Ñ is also used when writing the Tatar language in Latin script or Crimean Tatar language for ng sound.
See also