The tilde is a diacritic of the Latin alphabet used in many languages. It is also used, when it has a hunting, as sign of Ponctuation making it possible to separate from the counter-cells (in phonology, for example: /s/ ~ /z/ → “the /s/ phoneme is opposed to the /z/ phoneme”).

paleographic Titulus

One frequently finds in Latin Paléographie a sign, named titulus , generally traced as a superscribed feature becoming undulated thereafter, announcing, inter alia functions, than a letter was omitted in the writing to save place. This sign became very frequent like marks abbreviatory in the Western manuscripts Latin S then Byzantine Greek. It was transmitted to other writings, like the Gotique or the Cyrillic alphabet, where it names Titlo . In addition to its use as abbreviation signs, it was also frequently placed above letters having to be read like numbers in alphabetical numerations resulting from the Greek and Latin uses.

To consult Abbreviation and Numeration (Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, copte, gotic, etc) for more information.

titulus with the tilde

In Spain, the titulus (of which the name became tilde in Castillan after being last by the Catalan title ) represents the suspension (to include/understand “abbreviatory omission”) of an old letter N (initially at the end of the word then at the end of the Syllabe). The medieval scribes took the practice to use the titulus to note the presence of a Phonème /n/ deteriorated in contact with another /n/: two /n/ after having evolved/moved in/ɲ/( gn of gnon ), they were enough to n̅ to represent this new phoneme, foreigner with the Latin . In Castilian, for example, doña /do ɲa/comes from old a gave , written don̅a in the manuscripts. The form of the titulus become tilde is now always corrugated. It should be noted that in Castilian, always, the letter ñ is regarded as a letter with whole share, including for the Alphabetical classification.

Portuguese extended this process to note the Nasalisation vowels: ã corresponding then to year , for example. As in Spain, it is about the mark of suspension of a faded consonant N (here amuïe with Nasalisation of the preceding vowel). The use was taken again by a great number of phonetic transcriptions, of which the that of the novelists as well as the International Phonetic Alphabet.

In French, until the 19th century, the tilde was employed in the same direction: a large word as was often noted grãd . It then left the uses and the letter N (or m ) was employed again. Currently, it is used more only in foreign loans ( cañon ).

In all the cases, even if the speakers do not feel it inevitably, the tilde announces old a /n/.

Driving out tilde

The tilde can also be used as typographical symbol. It then known as driving out (he has its own spacing) and median (one traces it in the middle of the height of X ).

One thus uses it in Informatique. Under UNIX, ~ indicates the repertory of the current user: if the connected user is robert, ~/truc is thus a short cut for /home/robert/truc. Under Windows, the same sign is used for the internal management of the file names.

In addition, it is also used to indicate Minimal pair (in Phonologie) or, by extension, of the pairs (even more) in opposition: thus, “~ B has” means “has in opposition to B”.

It is obtained on the majority of the French keyboards under Windows by typing Gr+ or ++ and under Mac OS by typing + . For the keyboards not having a key tilde by typing + 126, it can be replaced in Internet addresses by %7E (or %7e).

Titulus, small ancient sign

The titulus was also a small sign which stated the crime of the victim during the Antiquité. Usually fixed to a stick, it was related in front of the procession of the future torture victim while leaving the prison then nailed on the cross above the head.

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