C 5200013 225650029 2008-07-14T19:00:13Z AlleborgoBot 3813685 robot Modifying: [[uz:C (harf)]] {{otherusesof}} {{redirect3|C#|For the programming language, see [[C sharp (programming language)|C# (programming language)]]}} {{wiktionarypar2|C|c}} {{Wikisource1911Enc|C}} {{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=C|lc=c}} [[Image:Copyright.svg|thumb|float|right|100px|'''C''' in [[copyright symbol]]]] '''C''' is the third [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] in the [[Latin alphabet]]. Its name in [[English language|English]] is spelled '''cee''' or occasionally '''ce''' ({{pronEng|siː}}).<ref>"C" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "cee," op. cit.</ref> ==History== {| class="wikitable" |- ! Hebrew <br>''gimel'' ! Phoenician <br>''gimel'' ! Classical Greek <br>''Gamma'' ! Early Latin <br>C ! Late Latin <br>C |- style="background-color:white; text-align:center;" |[[Image:Gimel Hebrew.svg|65px|Hebrew gimel]] |[[Image:Phoenician G.svg|65px|Phoenician gimel]] |[[Image:G 17162.gif|Classical Greek Gamma]] |[[Image:Early Latin G2.png|Early Latin]] |[[Image:Capital C.svg|65px|Late Latin C]] |} C comes from the same letter as G or g. The [[Semites]] named it [[Gimel (letter)|gimel]]. The sign is possibly adapted from an [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian hieroglyph]] for a [[sling (weapon)#Staff sling|staff sling]], which may have been the meaning of the name ''gimel''. Another possibility is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was ''gamal''. In the [[Etruscan language]], [[plosive consonant]]s had no contrastive [[phonation|voicing]], so the [[Greek language|Greek]] <font face="Times New Roman">[[Gamma|Γ]]</font> (Gamma) was adopted into the [[Etruscan alphabet]] to represent the {{IPA|/k/}} phoneme. Already in the [[Western Greek alphabet]], Gamma first took a [[Image:Early Etruscan C.gif|15px]] form in Early Etruscan, then [[Image:Classical Etruscan C.gif|15px]] in Classical Etruscan. In Early Latin it took a form then C in Classical Latin. Early Latin used C for both {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/g/}}, but during the 3rd century BC, a modified character<!--, or [[Image:Early Latin G.JPG]] -->, was introduced for {{IPA|/g/}}, and C itself retained for {{IPA|/k/}}. 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 {{IPA|/g/}} at a very early time, while [[K]] might have been used for {{IPA|/k/}}. Other alphabets have letters identical to C in form but not in use and derivation, in particular the [[Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic]] letter [[Es (Cyrillic)|Es]] which derives from one form of the Greek letter [[sigma (letter)|sigma]], known as the "lunate sigma" due to its resemblance to the crescent moon. ==Later use== When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, C represented only {{IPA|/k/}} and this value of the letter has been retained in loanwords to all the [[insular Celtic languages]]: in [[Welsh language|Welsh]], [[Irish language|Irish]], [[Scottish Gaelic language|Gaelic]], C, c, is still only {{IPA|/k/}}. The [[Old English]] or "[[Anglo-Saxon language|Anglo-Saxon]]" writing was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence C, c, in Old English, also originally represented {{IPA|/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, {{IPA|/k/}} before front vowels ({{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/i/}}) was [[palatalization|palatalized]], having, by the 10th century, advanced nearly or quite to the sound of {{IPA|/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 (for example, in [[Italian language|Italian]]). Original Latin {{IPA|/k/}} before front vowels had palatalized in Italy to the sound of {{IPA|/tʃ/}}, and in France and the Iberian peninsula to that of {{IPA|/ts/}}. Yet for these new sounds the old character C, c, was still retained before ''e'' and ''i,'' the letter thus represented two distinct values. Moreover the Latin phoneme {{IPA|/kʷ/}} (represented by QV, or ''qu'') de-labialized to {{IPA|/k/}} meaning that the various Romance languages had {{IPA|/k/}} before front vowels. In addition, [[Norman language|Norman]] used the Greek letter ''K,'' so that the sound {{IPA|/k/}} could be represented by either ''k'' or ''c,'' the latter of which could represent either {{IPA|/k/}} or {{IPA|/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´[[Image:Insular G.GIF]] (cé´[[Image:Insular G.GIF]]), cyng, brece, séoce,'' were now (without any change of sound) spelt ''Kent, ke<font face="Microsoft Sans Serif">ȝ</font>, 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 {{IPA|/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. In these cases, the Old English ''c'' gave place to ''k, qu, ch;'' but, on the other hand, ''c'' in its new value of {{IPA|/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 {{IPA|/ts/}} de-affricated to {{IPA|/s/}}; and from that date c before front vowels has been, phonetically, a duplicate or subsidiary letter to s; used either for [[etymology|etymological]] reasons, as in ''lance, cent,'' or (in defiance of etymology) to avoid the ambiguity due to the "etymological" use of s for {{IPA|/z/}}, as in ''ace, mice, once, pence, defence''. Thus, to show the etymology, English spelling has ''advise, devise,'' instead of ''advize, devize,'' which while ''advice, device, dice, ice, mice, twice,'' etc., do not reflect etymology; example has extended this to ''hence, pence, defence,'' etc., where there is no etymological necessity for ''c''. Former generations also wrote ''sence'' for sense. Hence, today the [[Romance languages]] and [[English language|English]] have a common feature inherited from [[Vulgar Latin]] where C takes on either a [[Hard and soft C|"hard" or "soft"]] value depending on the following vowel. In English, [[French language|French]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]], C takes the "hard" value {{IPA|/k/}} finally and before A, O, and U, and a "soft" value before E and I. However, as with everything else regarding English spelling, there are a couple of exceptions: "[[soccer]]" and "[[Pronunciation of Celtic|Celt]]" are words that have a ''k'' sound in the "wrong" place. The pronunciation of the "soft" value varies by language. In English, French, and Spanish from Latin America and southern Spain, C before E and I sounds {{IPA|/s/}}. In the Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain it is pronounced as the [[voiceless dental fricative]] {{IPA|/θ/}}. In [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Romanian language|Romanian]] it is pronounced as {{IPA|/ʧ/}}. Other languages use C with different values, such as {{IPA|/ð/}} in [[Fijian language|Fijian]]; {{IPA|/ʕ/}} in [[Somali language|Somali]]; the click {{IPA|/ǀ/}} in [[Xhosa language|Xhosa]] and [[Zulu language|Zulu]]; {{IPA|/ʤ/}} in [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Tatar language|Tatar]], and [[Azeri language|Azeri]]; {{IPA|/ʧ/}} in [[Bahasa Indonesia|Indonesian]], [[Malay language|Malay]], [[Volapük language|Volapük]], and a number of African languages such as [[Hausa language|Hausa]], [[Fula language|Fula]], and [[Manding languages|Manding]]; {{IPA|/ʦ/}} in all [[Balto-Slavic languages]] that use the Latin alphabet, as well as [[Albanian language|Albanian]], [[Esperanto language|Esperanto]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Ido language|Ido]], and [[Interlingua language|Interlingua]]; and {{IPA|/ʦʰ/}} in [[Pinyin|Romanized]] [[Chinese language|Chinese]]. It is also used as a transliteration of the Cyrillic "Ц" in the Latinic forms of [[Serbian alphabet|Serbian]], [[Romanisation of Macedonian|Macedonian]], and [[Romanization of Ukrainian|Ukrainian]]. There are several common digraphs with C, the most common being [[Ch (digraph)|CH]], which in some languages such as [[German language|German]] is far more common than C alone. In English, CH most commonly takes the value {{IPA|/ʧ/}} (which it invariably has in [[Spanish language|Spanish]]), but can take the value {{IPA|/k/}} or {{IPA|/ʃ/}}; some dialects of English also have {{IPA|/x/}} in words like ''loch'' where other speakers pronounce the final sound as {{IPA|/k/}}. CH takes various values in other languages, such as {{IPA|/x/}} in all Slavic languages using the Latin alphabet;{{IPA|/ç/}}, {{IPA|/k/}}, or {{IPA|/x/}} in German; {{IPA|/x/}} or silent in [[Dutch language|Dutch]]; {{IPA|/ʃ/}} in [[French language|French]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]; {{IPA|/k/}} in Interlingua and Italian, {{IPA|/ʈʂʰ/}} in [[Mandarin Chinese]]; and so forth. CK, with the value {{IPA|/k/}}, is often used after short vowels in [[Germanic languages]] such as English, German and [[Swedish language|Swedish]] (but some other Germanic languages use KK instead, such as Dutch and [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]]). The digraph CZ is found in Polish and CS in Hungarian, both representing {{IPA|/ʧ/}}. In Old English, Italian, and a few languages related to Italian, sc represents {{IPA|/ʃ/}} (however in Italian and related languages this only happens before e or i, otherwise it represents {{IPA|/sk/}}). As a [[phonetic]] symbol, lowercase c is the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA) and [[X-SAMPA]] symbol for the [[voiceless palatal plosive]], and capital C is the X-SAMPA symbol for the [[voiceless palatal fricative]]. ==Codes for computing== {{Letter |NATO=Charlie |Morse=–·–· |Character=C3 |Braille=⠉ }} In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] C is codepoint U+0043 and the [[lowercase]] c is U+0063. The [[ASCII]] code for capital C is 67 and for lowercase c is 99; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01000011 and 01100011, respectively. The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital C is 195 and for lowercase c is 131. The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&amp;#67;</tt>" and "<tt>&amp;#99;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively. ==References== {{reflist}} ==See also== {{Commons|C}} *[[Cent (currency)|¢]] (cent) *[[Ç]] (cedilla) *[[C-circumflex|Ĉ]] (C circumflex) *[[Č]] (C caron) *[[Ć]] (C acute) *[[Es (Cyrillic)|Cyrillic C (Es)]]. С, с are identical in shape with the Latin C,c but are equivalents of the Latin S, s. *[[Tse (Cyrillic)|Ц, ц - Tse (Cyrillic)]] *[[Ċ]] (C dot above) *{{Unicode|[[Ƈ]]}} (C hook) *{{Unicode|[[ʗ]]}} (stretched C) *{{Unicode|[[Ḉ]]}} (C acute cedilla) *{{Unicode|[[₡]]}} (colon currency symbol) *{{Unicode|[[₢]]}} (cruzeiro currency symbol)<!--- Unicode 5 has 0x20B5 for the Ghanan cedi ---> *{{Unicode|[[ℂ]]}} (double-struck C) *[[℃]] (degree Celsius) *{{Unicode|[[ℭ]]}} (Gothic C) *{{Unicode|[[Ⅽ]]}} (Roman number C) *[[Hard and soft C]] {{Latin alphabet}} [[Category:Latin letters]] [[af:C]] [[als:C]] [[ar:C]] [[arc:C]] [[ast:C]] [[az:C]] [[zh-min-nan:C]] [[bs:C]] [[br:C (lizherenn)]] [[bg:C]] [[ca:C]] [[cs:C]] [[co:C]] [[cy:C]] [[da:C]] [[de:C]] [[et:C]] [[el:C]] [[es:C]] [[eo:C]] [[eu:C]] [[fa:C]] [[fr:C (lettre)]] [[fur:C]] [[ga:C]] [[gan:C]] [[gd:C]] [[gl:C]] [[ko:C]] [[hr:C]] [[io:C]] [[ilo:C]] [[it:C]] [[he:C]] [[ka:C]] [[kw:C]] [[sw:C]] [[ht:C]] [[la:C]] [[lv:C]] [[lb:C]] [[lt:C]] [[hu:C]] [[ms:C]] [[nah:C]] [[nl:C (letter)]] [[ja:C]] [[no:C]] [[nn:C]] [[nrm:C]] [[oc:C]] [[uz:C (harf)]] [[pl:C]] [[pt:C]] [[crh:C]] [[ro:C]] [[qu:C]] [[ru:C (латиница)]] [[se:C]] [[scn:C]] [[simple:C]] [[sk:C]] [[sl:C]] [[szl:C]] [[sr:C (слово латинице)]] [[fi:C]] [[sv:C]] [[tl:C]] [[th:C]] [[vi:C]] [[tr:C]] [[tw:C]] [[uk:C (латиниця)]] [[vo:C]] [[yi:C]] [[yo:C]] [[zh-yue:C]] [[bat-smg:C]] [[zh:C]]