Hard and soft C

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In the

affricate
, depending on the language. In English (and not coincidentally also French), the sound of soft ⟨c⟩ is /s/ (as in both ⟨c⟩s in "circumference").

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

caecum, caesar). The hard ⟨c⟩ pronunciation occurs everywhere else[4]
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⟩:

A

long vowel
, as in rice, mace, and pacesetter.

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

yod-coalescence
).

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

Old English ceaster, meaning Roman station or walled town) are pronounced with /stər/ such as Worcester (/ˈwʊstər/), Gloucester (/ˈɡlɒstər/ or /ˈɡlɔːstər/), and Leicester (/ˈlɛstər/). The /s/ pronunciation occurs as a combination of a historically soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation and historical elision
of the first vowel of the suffix.

Italian loanwords

The original spellings and pronunciations of

loanwords
have mostly been kept. Many English words that have been borrowed from Italian follow a distinct set of pronunciation rules corresponding to those in Italian. The Italian soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation is /tʃ/ (as in cello and ciao), while the hard ⟨c⟩ is the same as in English. Italian orthography uses ⟨ch⟩ to indicate a hard pronunciation before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, analogous to English using ⟨k⟩ (as in kill and keep) and ⟨qu⟩ (as in mosquito and queue).

In addition to hard and soft ⟨c⟩, the digraph

sch⟩ in Italian always represents /sk/, not /ʃ/, but English-speakers commonly pronounce it as /ʃ/, perhaps in part due to familiarity with the German pronunciation; thus bruschetta often is realized not with the /k/ of Italian /brusˈketta/, but with /ʃ/. Italian uses ⟨cc⟩ to indicate the geminate
/kk/ before ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨u⟩ or /ttʃ/ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩. English does not have geminate phonemes, thus loanwords with soft ⟨cc⟩ that are pronounced with /ttʃ/ in Italian, such as cappuccino, are normally pronounced in English with the geminate simplified: /ˌkæpəˈtʃinoʊ/.

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

Nazi regime and the racist Ku Klux Klan, respectively).[5][6]

Other languages

Most modern

Ladino and archaic variants like Sardinian. Some non-Romance languages like German, Danish and Dutch use ⟨c⟩ in loanwords and also make this distinction.[7] The soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation, which occurs before ⟨i⟩, ⟨e⟩ and ⟨y⟩,[8]
is:

  1. /tʃ/ in Italian,[9] Romanian, and Old English;
  2. /s/ in
    Scandinavian languages
    ;
  3. /θ/ in European and equatoguinean Spanish;[3]
  4. /ts/ in words loaned into German. This is one of the more archaic pronunciations, and was also the pronunciation in
    Slavic languages that use Latin script, Hungarian, Albanian, and the Baltic languages
    ).

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,

Old Spanish a cedilla is used to indicate a soft /s/ pronunciation when it would otherwise seem to be hard. (French garçon [ɡaʁsɔ̃], 'boy'; Portuguese coração [kuɾɐˈsɐ̃w], 'heart'; Catalan caçar [kəˈsa], 'to hunt'). Spanish is similar, though ⟨z⟩ is used instead of ⟨ç⟩ (e.g. corazón [koɾaˈθon], 'heart').[2] However, this is essentially equivalent because despite common misconception the symbol Ç is actually derived from a Visigothic Z
.

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

Indonesian and many of the transcriptions of the languages of India such as Sanskrit and Hindi, where it always represents /tʃ/. See also C § Other languages
.

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

Hồ Chí Minh had proposed a simplified spelling, as shown in the title of one of his books, 'Đường kách mệnh'.[citation needed
]

Old Bohemian has hard c, but pronounce was [x] Schecowitz, Tocowitz, Crudim[clarification needed]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Covington, Michael (March 31, 2010). "Latin Pronunciation Demystified" (PDF). www.covingtoninnovations.com.
  2. ^ a b c d Arnaud (1945:38)
  3. ^ a b c d Emerson (1997:261)
  4. ^ Emerson (1997:266)
  5. ^ "Definition of AMERIKA". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ Venezky (1970:260)
  8. ^ Arnaud (1945:37)
  9. ^ a b Hall (1944:82)
  10. ^ a b c Mateus & d'Andrade (2000:7)
  11. ^ a b c Wheeler (1979:7)
  12. ^ Venezky (1970:261)
  13. ^ Tranel (1987:12)

References