or more intermediate letters of the word that is abridged Marks with independent meaning Such marks inform the reader of the identity of the missing part of the word without affecting (independent of) the meaning. Some of them may be interpreted as alternative contextual glyphs of their respective letters. The straight or curved macron above a letter means that an n or m is missing. A remnant can be seen in Spanish where an n with a tilde (ñ) is used for . In Visigoth texts before the 9th century, however, a dot is placed above the macron to indicate m, and the same mark without a dot meant n. The line with a dot became the general mark after the 9th century in Visigoth texts. A mark, resembling the Arabic numeral nine (9) or a mirrored C in Gothic texts, is one of the oldest signs and can be found in the texts of Marcus Valerius Probus and Tironian notes with the same meaning as con. Another mark, similar to a bold comma or a superscript 9, placed after the letter on the median line, represented us or os, generally at the end of the word, being the nominative case affix of the second declension, sometimes is or simply s. The apostrophe used today originated from various marks in sigla, which caused its current use in elision, such as in the Saxon genitive. A wave-like or omicron-like mark stands for a missing r (rhotic consonant) or ra. Sometimes, a similar wave-like mark at the end of a word indicated a missing -a or syllable ending in -a. This is, however, a coincidence, as one of the marks stems from a small r-like mark and the other from an a-like one. In later texts, it became a diaeresis (two dots), or a broken line. A mark, resembling the Arabic numeral two (2) and placed on the median line after the letter, indicates tur or ur, which occurs generally at the end of the word. Alternatively it could stand for ter or er but not at the end of the word. (Nordic languages, such as Old English, have a lightning-bolt-like mark for words ending in er.) The r rotunda with a cut generally stood for -rum (a common genitive plural ending in Latin), but it could also stand for a truncation after the letter r. A last mark, which could either