Hard and soft C
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In the
There was no soft ⟨c⟩ in classical Latin, where it was always pronounced as /k/.[1]
History
This alternation is caused by a historical palatalization of /k/ which took place in Late Latin, and led to a change in the pronunciation of the sound [k] before the front vowels [e] and [i].[2][3] Later, other languages not directly descended from Latin, such as English, inherited this feature as an orthographic convention.
English
General overview
In
except in the letter combinations ⟨sc⟩, ⟨ch⟩, and ⟨sch⟩ which have distinct pronunciation rules. ⟨cc⟩ generally represents /ks/ before ⟨i e y⟩, as in accident, succeed, and coccyx.There are exceptions to the general rules of hard and soft ⟨c⟩:
- The ⟨c⟩ in the words Celt and Celtic was traditionally soft, but since the late 19th century, the hard pronunciation has also been recognized in conscious imitation of the Pronunciation of Celtic. Welsh and Gaelic loanwords in English which retain their native spelling, such as ceilidh, cistvaen (alternatively spelled ⟨kistvaen⟩) or Cymric, are also pronounced hard. The Irish and Welsh languages have no letter K, so all Cs are pronounced hard.
- The ⟨c⟩ is hard in a handful of words like soccer and reccealso have a hard ⟨c⟩.
- The ⟨sc⟩ in derivativessuch as sceptical and scepticism, represents /sk/. These words are alternative spellings to ⟨skeptical⟩ and ⟨skepticism⟩, respectively.
- The ⟨cc⟩ of flaccid now sometimes represents a single soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation /ˈflæsɪd/, which is a simplification of /ˈflæksɪd/.
- The ⟨c⟩ is silent before ⟨t⟩ in indict and its derivatives such as indictment, in the name of the U.S. state Connecticut, and in some pronunciations of Arctic and Antarctic.
- In a few cases such as limacon, a soft ⟨c⟩ appears before ⟨a o u⟩ and is optionally indicated to be soft by means of attaching a cedillato its bottom, giving façade, limaçon.
A
When adding suffixes with ⟨i e y⟩ (such as -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -ism, -ist, -y, and -ie) to root words ending in ⟨ce⟩, the final ⟨e⟩ of the root word is often dropped and the root word retains the soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation as in danced, dancing, and dancer from dance. The suffixes -ify and -ise/-ize can be added to most nouns and adjectives to form new verbs. The pronunciation of ⟨c⟩ in newly coined words using these suffixes is not always clear. The digraph ⟨ck⟩ may be used to retain the hard ⟨c⟩ pronunciation in inflections and derivatives of a word such as trafficking from the verb traffic.
There are several cases in English in which hard and soft ⟨c⟩ alternate with the addition of suffixes as in critic/criticism and electric/electricity (electrician has a soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation of /ʃ/ because of
Letter combinations
A number of two-letter combinations or digraphs follow distinct pronunciation patterns and do not follow the hard/soft distinction of ⟨c⟩. For example, ⟨ch⟩ may represent /tʃ/ (as in chicken), /ʃ/ (as in chef), or /k/ (as in choir). Other letter combinations that don't follow the paradigm include ⟨cz⟩, ⟨sc⟩, ⟨cs⟩, ⟨tch⟩, ⟨sch⟩, and ⟨tsch⟩. These come primarily from loanwords.
Besides a few examples (recce, soccer, Speccy), ⟨cc⟩ fits neatly with the regular rules of ⟨c⟩: Before ⟨i e y⟩, the second ⟨c⟩ is soft while the first is hard. Words such as accept and success are pronounced with /ks/ and words such as succumb and accommodate are pronounced with /k/. Exceptions include loanwords from Italian such as cappuccino with /tʃ/ for ⟨cc⟩.
Many placenames and other proper nouns with -cester (from
Italian loanwords
The original spellings and pronunciations of
In addition to hard and soft ⟨c⟩, the digraph ⟨
Suffixation issues
Rarely, the use of unusual suffixed forms to create neologisms occurs. For example, the words ace and race are both standard words but adding -ate or -age (both productive affixes in English) would create spellings that seem to indicate hard ⟨c⟩ pronunciations. (acate and racage)[citation needed]. Potential remedies include altering the spelling to asate and rasage, though no standard conventions exist.
Replacement with ⟨k⟩
Sometimes ⟨k⟩ replaces ⟨c⟩, ⟨ck⟩, or ⟨qu⟩, as a
Other languages
Most modern
- /tʃ/ in Italian,[9] Romanian, and Old English;
- /s/ in Scandinavian languages;
- /θ/ in European and equatoguinean Spanish;[3]
- /ts/ in words loaned into German. This is one of the more archaic pronunciations, and was also the pronunciation in ).
The hard ⟨c⟩ occurs in all other positions and represents /k/ in all these aforementioned languages, including in the case of ⟨c⟩ that comes before the Romanian letter î, which is different from i.
In Italian[9] and Romanian,[12] the orthographic convention for representing /k/ before front vowels is to add ⟨h⟩ (Italian chiaro, [ˈkjaːro] 'clear'). ⟨qu⟩ is used to accomplish the same purpose in Catalan,[11] Portuguese,[10] Spanish,[2] and French. Rarely, the use of unusual suffixed forms to create neologisms occurs. For example, the words saco and taco are both standard words but adding -es or -ez (both productive affixes in Spanish) would create spellings that seem to indicate soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciations. (saces and tacez). Potential remedies include altering the spelling to saques and taquez, though no standard conventions exist.
In French,
In the orthographies of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, most consonants including ⟨c⟩ have a "broad" (velarized) vs "slender" distinction (palatalized) for many of its other consonants generally based on whether the nearest vowel is ⟨a o u⟩ or ⟨i e⟩, respectively. In Irish, ⟨c⟩ usually represents a hard /k/, but represents /c/ before e or i, or after i. In Scottish Gaelic, broad ⟨c⟩ is one of /kʰ ʰk ʰk k/, and slender ⟨c⟩ is one of /kʰʲ ʰkʲ ʰkʲ kʲ/, depending on the phonetic environment.
A number of orthographies do not make a hard/soft distinction. The ⟨c⟩ is always hard in
Swedish has a similar phenomenon with hard and soft ⟨k⟩: this results from a similar historical palatalization development. Soft ⟨k⟩ is typically a palatal [ç] or an alveolo-palatal [ɕ], and occurs before not only ⟨i⟩, ⟨e⟩ and ⟨y⟩, but also ⟨j⟩, ⟨ä⟩, and ⟨ö⟩. Another similar system with hard and soft ⟨k⟩ is found in Faroese with the hard ⟨k⟩ being /kʰ/ and the soft being /t͡ʃʰ/, and Turkish where the soft ⟨k⟩ is /c/.
The
Old Bohemian has hard c, but pronounce was [x] Schecowitz, Tocowitz, Crudim[clarification needed]
See also
Notes
- ^ Covington, Michael (March 31, 2010). "Latin Pronunciation Demystified" (PDF). www.covingtoninnovations.com.
- ^ a b c d Arnaud (1945:38)
- ^ a b c d Emerson (1997:261)
- ^ Emerson (1997:266)
- ^ "Definition of AMERIKA". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
- ^ "Amerika | Definition of Amerika by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Amerika". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
- ^ Venezky (1970:260)
- ^ Arnaud (1945:37)
- ^ a b Hall (1944:82)
- ^ a b c Mateus & d'Andrade (2000:7)
- ^ a b c Wheeler (1979:7)
- ^ Venezky (1970:261)
- ^ Tranel (1987:12)
References
- Arnaud, Leonard E. (1945), "Teaching the Pronunciation of "C" and "G" and the Spanish Diphthongs", The Modern Language Journal, 29 (1): 37–39, JSTOR 318102
- Emerson, Ralph H. (1997), "English Spelling and Its Relation to Sound", American Speech, 72 (3): 260–288, JSTOR 455654
- Hall, Robert Jr. (1944), "Italian Phonemes and Orthography", Italica, 21 (2): 72–82, JSTOR 475860
- Mateus, Maria Helena; d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000), The Phonology of Portuguese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823581-X
- Tranel, Bernard (1987), The sounds of French, Cambridge university press
- Venezky, Richard L. (1970), "Principles for the Design of Practical Writing Systems", Anthropological Linguistics, 12 (7): 256–270
- Wheeler, Max W (1979), Phonology Of Catalan, Oxford: Blackwell