Tilde facts for kids

~ Tilde
Diacritics
	accent
	acute, apex( ´ )
	double acute( ˝ )
	grave( ` )
	double grave( ̏ )
	breve( ˘ )
	inverted breve( ̑ )
	caron / háček( ˇ )
	cedilla / cédille( ¸ )
	diaeresis, umlaut)( ¨ )
	circumflex / vokáň( ˆ )
	dot( · )
	hook( ̡ ̢ )
	hook above / dấu hỏi( ̉ )
	horn / dấu móc( ̛ )
	macron, macron below( ¯ ̱ )
	ogonek / nosinė( ˛ )
	ring / kroužek( ˚, ˳ )
	rough breathing / dasia( ῾ )
	sicilicus( ͗ )
	smooth breathing / psili( ᾿ )
Marks sometimes used as diacritics
	apostrophe( ’ )
	bar( \| )
	colon( : )
	comma( , )
	hyphen( ˗ )
	tilde( ~ )
	titlo( ҃ )
Diacritical marks in other scripts
	Arabic diacritics
	Greek diacritics
	Gurmukhi diacritics
	Hebrew diacritics
	Indic diacritics
	anusvara( ं ং ം )
	chandrabindu( ँ ఁ )
	nukta( ़ )
	virama( ् ് ్ ් ್ )
	IPA diacritics
	Japanese diacritics
	dakuten( ﾞ )
	handakuten( ﾟ )
	Khmer diacritics
	Syriac diacritics
	Thai diacritics
Related
	Punctuation marks

The tilde ( ~ ) can be many things, such as a diacritic. Many languages use tildes. Two of these are Spanish and Portuguese.

In Spanish, the tilde, which is only put over the N ( Ñ ), makes it sound like [ɲ] (like 'ny' in canyon) instead of [n].

The tilde also appears in Portuguese where it is used to nasalise (meaning to sound them through the nose) the vowels "a" (ã) and "o" (õ).

In UNIX operating systems, a tilde represents the user's "home" directory.

The tilde is also used to denote when something is an estimate, such as ~24 meaning approximately 24

Images for kids

Text of Exeter Domesday Book of 1086
Carta marina showing Finnish economy, with the captions Hic fabricantur naves and Hic fabricantur bombarde abbreviated
Raised tilde from a dot matrix printer