What is the letter c

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c, third letter of the alphabet, corresponding to Semitic gimel (which probably derived from an early sign for "camel") and Greek gamma (Γ). A rounded form occurs at Corinth and in the Chalcidic alphabet, and both an angular and a rounded form are found in the early Latin alphabet, as well as in Etruscan. The rounded form survived and became general, and the shape of the letter has since altered little.

Click Here to see full-size tableThe sound represented by the letter in Semitic and in Greek was the voiced velar stop, represented in English by the "hard" g. In the Latin alphabet it came to represent the unvoiced velar stop (indicated in English by k as well as c) and was for some time, it appears, used for both the voiced and unvoiced sounds. This change is in all probability due to the Etruscan alphabet from which the Latin alphabet was derived, for a phonemic distinction between voiced and voiceless stops apparently did not exist in the Etruscan language. An early Latin inscription exists in which the word RECEI (probably an early dative form of rex, "king") occurs, the letter C being still employed to represent the voiced sound. Finally a new symbol G was used for the voiced sound, and C displaced K as the representative of the unvoiced stop.

In modern English the letter represents two separate sounds: (1) the unvoiced velar stop as in the Latin alphabet and (2) the unvoiced sibilant, identical with the sound represented by s in certain positions. The letter represents the sibilant when followed by any of the front vowels, e, i, and y (e.g., in "receive," "cider," "cycle"), and in all other cases (except before h) the velar (e. g., "call," "come," "clear," "crumb," "epic"). This is due to the palatalization of the velar in early medieval times before the front vowel, the stages of sound change being k > ki > tš > ts > s. The letter c was applied by French orthographists in the 12th century to represent the sound ts in English, and this sound developed into the simpler sibilant s. Gradually the use of the letter c to represent the velar before front vowels (for example, in the Middle English cyng) gave way to that of k, ambiguity being thus as far as possible avoided. The c takes the place of s in words such as "mice” and "advice," in which s would represent a voiced sibilant (identical with the sound of z), and in words such as "practice" merely as a means of grammatical distinction.

Before k the letter is often redundant (e.g., in "thick," "clock," etc. ). The combination ch represents an unvoiced palatal affricate (tš), as in "church," except that in words of Greek origin it generally has the sound of k—e.g., in "chorus."

This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.

the history of the letter ‘C’ « the evolving ultrasaurus

> My five year old son asks:
> Why did they invent the letter C, when it makes the sounds of K and S?

It sure does make it tough to play “I Spy.” In seeking an answer to this question, I first searched google and found Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter “C” Unusable. A great article, but not exactly what I was looking for. Then I chanced to read danah’s capitalization rules where Andrew Cone had left a link to an interesting discussion.

Only on the internet could I fulfill such random curiosity with such convenience. While waiting for paper mache to dry I submitted the question to the “Ask A Linguist” list.

In case anyone else is curious, I’ve compiled a few highlights from the responses I received….

The short answer

Originally, C spelled the sound /g/. But, with some help from the Etruscans, the Romans got into a bit of a tangle here, and they wound up using C to spell both the sound /g/ and the sound /k/, while they hardly used the letter K at all. Eventually, realizing this was a bad idea, they invented a new letter, G, to spell the sound /g/, and they then used C exclusively to spell the sound /k/.

This was the system borrowed from the Romans by the Anglo-Saxons. Originally C spelled only /k/ in Old English. But then the pronunciation of English changed. (Larry Trask)

Another important consideration

“‘c’ is often used (though not always) for roots whose pronunciation alternates between [s] and [k]. think of ‘public’ vs. ‘publicity’. If we spelled the first ‘publik’ and the second ‘publisity’ we wouldn’t be able to see the relationship between the two words as easily. ” (Susan Fisher)

A longer story
(this might make a good children’s book if it had pictures)

“That’s a very good question, and the answer is that it didn’t always make those sounds. See, the language we speak has changed over the centuries, as all languages do. And writing — which is different from talking, changes too, though much more slowly.

The letter C wasn’t invented for English. It was invented several thousand years ago to write down the sounds of Phoenician, a language related to Hebrew and Arabic. At the time, the letter was called “gamel” or something like that, which means ‘camel’ (see the C?). It represented the G sound (the letter G was invented later, by the Romans).

Later on the Greeks started using the Phoenician alphabet and they used the letter to represent the G sound, too. Not having any camels, they called it “gamma”; the K sound was represented by the letter K, called “kappa”. And later still, people in Italy used it, but they didn’t have a G sound, so they used it for the K sound.

The Romans eventually wound up using this alphabet, with the letter C standing for the K sound, but they did have a G sound, so they put a little jot on the C and made it a G (they didn’t use the letter K, except for words they borrowed from Greek).” (John Lawler)

“In the Norman French era, “C” was pronounced “S” before the letters “I,E,(Y)”, and otherwise “K”, After William the Conquerer captured England in 1066, English borrowed a lot of French words with French spellings, so “C” became a letter with two sounds. English also had words like “king, keep” where /k/ was pronounced before /e,i/, so the Greek letter “K” was reintroduced to keep things straight (more or less).” (Elizabeth J. Pyatt)

Many thanks to those fine linguists who helped me understand the interesting history of the letter C, and it’s relatives K and G:
Susan Fischer, NTID/RIT
John Lawler, U Michigan Linguistics Dept
Herb Stahlke, Ball State University
Larry Trask, University of Sussex
Mike Hammond
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D., Penn State University
Anthea Fraser GUPTA,University of Leeds

My original question and all follow-up answers are archived at “Ask A Linguist”

I still wonder… how do we know how people pronounced words thousands of years ago? were there ancient linguists who recorded their observations?

Letter C - general information, examples, materials for study

C, from - Letter of all Slavic Cyrillic alphabets; is also used in the writings of some non-Slavic peoples. In the Old and Church Slavonic alphabets, it is called “word”, which could mean different things: “word, speech, gift of speech, rumor, news, news, sermon, saying, writing, commandment”. In Cyrillic, it is usually considered 19th in order and looks like; in the Glagolitic alphabet, the 20th one has the form. In both alphabets, the numerical value is 200. The origin of the Cyrillic letter is Greek sigma, the Glagolitic one is often explained as an artificial formation, a combination of Christian symbols of a triangle and a circle - like an inverted sign for I.

General information

SS

The name of the letter:

ES

letter:

Consistent

Sound:

[s]

Drawing:

C - heading
si - lowercase

positions :

19th from the beginning of
15th from the end of

Old name:

Slovo

Rang:

7

use:

27627040

Frequency:

8.90%

Translits:

S

In English:

Cyrillic Letter ES

ABC MORSE:

Point
· · · · · · · · · · ·

Seven

Seven

. +0421
from: U+0441

HTML code:

from: С or Ч
with: с or ч

URL code

C: %D0%A1
c: %D1%81

The letter "C" in various alphabets, languages ​​and systems

C
Semyon

In the radio alphabet

As examples, we will also give words from different areas that begin with the letter "C". Among them are proper and common nouns, well-known and rare.

Examples of words starting with the letter "C"

#	Words
Words beginning with "S"	Elephant, hay, country, wall, sleep
Words ending with "C"	Rice, fox, timber, boss
With a "C" in the middle of the word	Suit, mustache, scales, whiskey, boxer, paddle
Words containing more than one "S"	Boss, sauce, cashier, whistle, sine, press
Countries	USA, Serbia, Slovakia, Sudan, Syria, Singapore. See all countries starting with the letter "C"
Cities	St. Petersburg, Sevastopol, Sofia, Sochi, Sydney, Slavyansk. See all cities starting with the letter "C"
Animals	Elephant, locust, tit, stingray, mackerel, dog, falcon, dragonfly. See all animals starting with the letter "C"
Vegetables, fruits and berries	Plum, lettuce, celery, beets, asparagus, currants.
Professions	Judge, dentist, stylist, welder, plumber. See all professions starting with the letter "C"
All names beginning with "S" with meanings and origins
Male names	Slava, Stepan, Sergei, Semyon, Socrates. See all male names starting with the letter "S", as well as their meaning and origin
Women's names	Sati, Snezhana, Sonya, Sofia, Sobrina. See all female names starting with the letter "S", as well as their meaning and origin

Study Materials

Verses

* * *
What is the letter that shines
in the old clear moon?
Crescent in the dark sky
The letter C hung over the house.
(V. Stepanov)

Poems about the letter "C"

Riddles

* * *
The elephant is a huge elephant uncle,
He loves to listen to fairy tales.
A fairy tale about a dense forest
Listens under the letter ...

Riddles about the letter "C"

Patter

* * *
Svetlana knows the letter C,
Writes fairy tales.
The letter C goes to the Light,
Carries fairy tales in a purse.

Tongue twisters with the letter "C"

Tales

About the letter C

The letter C was the brightest, most radiant, luminous, happiest letter of the Alphabet, because it had a big, bright heart — like the sun! And so she shone like a little sun! She didn’t even have light bulbs in her apartment, she simply didn’t need them. Wherever she appeared, it immediately became bright as day.

One day our luminous letter C went for a walk. She walked and walked, and did not notice how the day had already ended, and it was getting dark around, because it was light everywhere, so she did not notice. Suddenly she heard someone crying. Only then did she realize, looking at the dark sky, that the night had already come, as stars had already begun to appear in the sky. And she hurried to help where the crying came from. As soon as she approached one large currant bush, the crying stopped. The letter C looked and saw a little girl there, who was sitting and crying. read more the tale about the letter "C"

Rules for reading the letters c and g, as well as the letter combinations ch, gh in English "gh". Such words seem especially difficult not only to those who have just begun to learn English, but also to those who seem to already speak and read English quite well, but have not taken an English phonetics course, and therefore read the words “as they remembered, as they heard”. There are not many “complex” letters and letter combinations in the English language, and today there will be 4 less of them for you!

Rules for reading the letter “C”

Usually the English letter “C” is pronounced as [ K ]: Come , Clone , Cube , CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE