C - Later Use

Later Use

When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, ⟨c⟩ represented only /k/ and this value of the letter has been retained in loanwords to all the insular Celtic languages: in Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, ⟨c⟩ represents only /k/. The Old English or "Anglo-Saxon" writing was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence ⟨c⟩ in Old English also originally represented /k/; the Modern English words kin, break, broken, thick, and seek, all come from Old English words written with ⟨c⟩: cyn, brecan, brocen, þicc, and séoc. But during the course of the Old English period, /k/ before front vowels (/e/ and /i/) was palatalized, having changed by the tenth century to, though ⟨c⟩ was still used, 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).

In Vulgar Latin, /k/ became palatalized to in Italy and Dalmatia; in France and the Iberian peninsula, it became . Yet for these new sounds ⟨c⟩ was still used before front vowels (⟨e, i⟩) the letter thus represented two distinct values. Subsequently, the Latin phoneme /kʷ/ (represented by ⟨qv⟩) de-labialized to /k/ meaning that the various Romance languages had /k/ before front vowels. In addition, Norman used the Greek letter ⟨k⟩ so that the sound /k/ could be represented by either ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩ the latter of which could represent either /k/ or /ts/ depending on whether it preceded a front vowel or not. The convention of using both ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ was applied to the writing of English after the Norman Conquest, causing a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. Thus while Old English candel, clif, corn, crop, cú, remained unchanged, Cent, cæ´ᵹ (cé´ᵹ), cyng, brece, séoce, were now (without any change of sound) spelled ⟨Kent⟩, ⟨keȝ⟩, ⟨kyng⟩, ⟨breke⟩, and ⟨seoke⟩; even cniht ('knight') was subsequently changed to ⟨kniht⟩ and þic ('thick') changed to ⟨thik⟩ or ⟨thikk⟩. The Old English ⟨cw⟩ was also at length displaced by the French ⟨qu⟩ so that the Old English cwén ('queen') and cwic ('quick') became Middle English ⟨quen⟩ ⟨quik⟩, respectively. to which Old English palatalized /k/ had advanced, also occurred in French, chiefly from Latin /k/ before ⟨a⟩. In French it was represented by ⟨ch⟩, as in champ (from Latin camp-um) and this spelling was 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 /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 thirteenth century both in France and England, this sound /ts/ de-affricated to /s/; and from that time ⟨c⟩ has represented /s/ before front vowels 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, 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 have a common feature inherited from Vulgar Latin where ⟨c⟩ takes on either a "hard" or "soft" value depending on the following vowel.