Ç
Encyclopedia : : : : Ç
- For the programming language, see C programming language. Also, due to technical limitations, the article on the C# programming language is located at C Sharp. For information about the musical note C♯, see musical notation
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The letter C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is cee (IPA [si]).
C comes from the same letter as G or g. The Semites named it gimel, their word for a throwing stick. The sign is possibly adapted from an Egyptian hieroglyphic (picture symbol) for a boomerang. Some scholars claim that the Semitic Gimel (ג) pictured a camel, but most assume it was probably gaml (a throwing stick / boomerang).
In the Etruscan language, plosive consonants had no contrastive voicing, so the Greek Γ (Gamma) was adopted into the Estruscan alphabet to represent the /k/ phoneme. Already in the Western Greek alphabet, Gamma first took a
form in Early Etruscan, then in Classical Etruscan. In Early Latin it took a form then C in Classical Latin. Early Latin used C for both /k/ and /g/, but during the 3rd century BC, a modified character, or, was introduced for the /g/ sound, and C itself retained for the /k/ sound. Hence, in the classical period and after, G was treated as the phonetic representative of gamma, and C as the equivalent of kappa, in the transliteration of Greek words into Roman spelling, as in KA∆MOΣ, KYPOΣ, ΦΩKIΣ, in Roman letters CADMVS, CYRVS, PHOCIS. It is also possible but uncertain that C represented only /g/ at a very early time, while K might have been used for /k/.
Other alphabets have letters identical to C in form but not in use and derivation, in particular the Cyrillic letter Es which derives from one form of the Greek letter sigma, known as the "lunate sigma" from its resemblance to a crescent moon.
Later use
/k/ developed palatal and velar allophones in Latin, probably due to Etruscan influence. When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, C had only the sound /k/ and this value of the letter has been retained by all the [[wiktionary:insular|insular]] Celts: in Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, C, c, is still only /k/. The Old English or “Anglo-Saxon” writing was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence C, c, in Old English, was also originally /k/: the words kin, break, broken, thick, seek, were in Old English written cyn, brecan, brocen, Þicc, séoc. But during the course of the Old English period, the k-sound before e and i became palatalized, and had by the 10th century advanced nearly or quite to the sound of /tʃ /, though still written c, as in cir(i)ce, wrecc(e)a. On the continent, meanwhile, a similar phonetic change had also been going on.Original Latin C (= k) before e, i, had by palatalization advanced in Italy to the sound of /tʃ /, and in France still further to that of /ts/. Yet for these new sounds the old character C, c, was still retained before e and i, the letter thus acquiring two distinct values. Moreover the sound /k/ also occurred in French before e and i (chiefly as a representative of Latin qu); this was now expressed in Northern French by the Greek letter K, k; so that the sound /k/ had two symbols, k and c, while the symbol c had two sounds (/k/ and /ts/). These French inconsistencies as to C and K were, after the Norman Conquest, applied to the writing of English, which caused a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. Thus while Old English candel, clif, corn, crop, cú, remained unchanged, ''Cent, cæ´
(cé´), cyng, brece, séoce, were now (without any change of sound) spelt Kent, keȝ, kyng, breke, seoke; even cniht was subsequently spelt kniht, knight, and Þic, Þicc, became thik, thikk, thick. The Old English cw- was also at length (very unnecessarily) displaced by the French qw, qu, so that the Old English cwén, cwic, became Middle English qwen, quen, qwik, quik, now queen, quick. The sound /tʃ / to which Old English palatalized c had advanced, also occurred in French, chiefly (in Central French) from Latin c before a. In French it was represented by ch, as in champ, cher:–Latin camp-um, caōr-um; and this spelling was now introduced into English: the Hatton Gospels, written about 1160, have in Matt. i-iii, child, chyld, riche, mychel, for the cild, rice, mycel, of the Old English version whence they were copied: this was, phonetically, an improvement. In these cases, the Old English c gave place to k, qu, ch; but, on the other hand, c in its new value of /ts/ came in largely in French words like processiun, emperice, grace, and was also substituted for ts in a few Old English words, as miltse, bletsien, in early Middle English milce, blecien. By the end of the 13th century both in France and England, this sound /ts/ was reduced to simple /s/; and from that date c before e, i, y, has been, phonetically, a duplicate or subsidiary letter to s; used either for "etymological" reasons, as in lance, cent, or (in defiance of etymology) to avoid the ambiguity due to the "etymological" use of s for /z/, as in ace, mice, once, pence, defence''.
Thus, on the plea of showing the etymology, we write advise, devise, instead of advize, devize, which obliges us to write advice, device, dice, ice, mice, twice, etc., in defiance of the etymology; bad example has extended this to hence, pence, defence, etc., where there is no plea whatever for c. Former generations also wrote sence for sense.
Hence, today the Romance languages and English have a common feature inherited from Vulgar Latin where C takes on either a "hard" or "soft" value depending on the following vowel. In English and French, C takes the "hard" value ] (Unicode 2102 "ℂ") denotes the set of all complex numbers.
See also
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