Ç

Template:Short description Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox graphemeÇ or ç (C-cedilla) is a Latin script letter used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Manx, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish, Kazakh, and Romance alphabets. Romance languages that use this letter include Catalan, French, Portuguese, and Occitan, as a variant of the letter C with a cedilla. It is also occasionally used in Crimean Tatar and in Tajik (when written in the Latin script) to represent the Template:IPAslink sound. It is rarely used in Balinese, usually only in the word "Çaka" during Nyepi, one of the Balinese Hinduism holidays. It is often retained in the spelling of loanwords from any of these languages in English, Basque, Dutch, Spanish and other languages using the Latin alphabet.

It was first used for the sound of the voiceless alveolar affricate Template:IPAslink in Old Spanish and stems from the Visigothic form of the letter z (Ꝣ). The phoneme originated in Vulgar Latin from the palatalization of the plosives Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink in some conditions. Later, changed into Template:IPAslink in many Romance languages and dialects. Spanish has not used the symbol since an orthographic reform in the 18th century (which replaced ç with the z, which has now been devoiced into Template:IPAslink or Template:IPAslink), but it was adopted for writing other languages.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Template:IPAslink represents the voiceless palatal fricative.

Usage as a letter variant in various languages

File:Visigothic Z-C cedille.svg

Evolution from Visigoth Z to modern Ç.

In many languages, Template:Angbr represents the "soft" sound Template:IPAslink where a Template:Angbr would normally represent the "hard" sound Template:IPAslink. These include:

• Catalan. Known as ce trencada ('broken C') in this language, where it can be used before Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or at the end of a word. Some examples of words with Template:Angbr are amenaça ('menace'), torçat ('twisted'), xoriço ('chorizo'), forçut ('strong'), dolç ('sweet') and caça ('hunting'). The only two words starting with ç that can be found in the dictionary are ço ('this') and ça ('here'), which are rarely used, except for some expressions like ço que ('which'). A well-known word with this character is Barça, a common Catalan clipping of Futbol Club Barcelona. When writing by hand, Catalans don't write ç with a cedilla under it, but a symbol similar to a comma, which crosses the c (called trenc). In fact, some scholars like Jesús Alturo claim that ce trencada evolved from combining c and i (written c_i) instead of the letter z.
• French (cé cédille): français ('French'), garçon ('boy'), façade ('frontage'), grinçant ('squeaking'), leçon ('lesson'), reçu ('received' [past participle]). French does not use the character at the end of a word but it can occur at the beginning of a word (e.g., ça, 'that'). It is never used in French where C would denote /s/ (before e, i, y) nor before h.
• Occitan (ce cedilha): torçut ('twisted'), çò ('this'), ça que la ('nevertheless'), braç ('arm'), brèç ('cradle'), voraç ('voracious'). It can occur at the beginning or end of words.
• Portuguese (cê-cedilha, cê de cedilha or cê cedilhado): it is used before Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr: taça ('cup'), braço ('arm'), açúcar ('sugar'). Modern Portuguese does not use the character at the beginning or at the end of a word (the nickname for Conceição is São, not Ção). According to a Portuguese grammar written in 1550, the letter ç had the sound of /dz/ around that time. Another grammar written around 1700 would say that the letter ç sounds like /s/, which shows a phonetic evolution that is still valid today.
• Old Galician used the ç letter, however it is no longer present in the official norm for the Galician language by the Royal Galician Academy. However, the unofficial norm for the Galician language by the AGAL reclaims Template:Angbr as part of the language.
• Old Spanish used Template:Angbr to represent /t͡s/.
• Early Modern Spanish used the letter ç to represent either /θ/ or /s/ before /a/, /o/, and /u/ in much the same way as Modern Spanish uses the letter z. Middle Castilian Spanish pronounced Template:Angbr as /θ/. Andalusian, Canarian, and Latin American Spanish pronounced Template:Angbr as /s/. A spelling reform in the 18th century eliminated Template:Angbr from Spanish orthography.

In other languages, it represents the voiceless postalveolar affricate (like Template:Angbr in English chalk):

• Albanian
• Turkish
• Friulian (c cun cedilie) before Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or at the end of a word.

• Balinese Ç usually used to commemorate the Nyepi holiday only used in the word 'Çaka', for example:

  "Selamat Hari Raya Nyepi tahun Çaka 1945"

  (Happy Nyepi Day in Çaka 1945)

The pronunciation is similar to the slavic S.

• In Manx it is used in the digraph Template:Angbr, which also represents Template:IPAslink, to differentiate it from normal Template:Angbr, which represents Template:IPAslink.

In loanwords only

• In Basque, Template:Angbr (known as ze hautsia) is used in the loanword Curaçao.
• In Dutch, it can be found in some words from French and Portuguese, such as façade, reçu, Provençaals and Curaçao.
• In English, Template:Angbr is used in loanwords such as façade and limaçon (although the cedilla mark is often dropped: facade, limacon).

As a separate letter in various languages

It represents the voiceless postalveolar affricate Template:IPAslink in the following languages:

• the 4th letter of the Albanian alphabet.
• the 4th letter of the Azerbaijani alphabet.
• the 4th letter of the Dobrujan Tatar alphabet.
• the 4th letter of the Turkish alphabet.
• the 3rd letter of the Turkmen alphabet.
• the 4th letter of the Kurmanji alphabet (also known as Northern Kurdish).
• the 4th letter of the Zazaki alphabet.

File:Carrer de França, el Catllar.jpg

Catalan way for writing Ç.

In the 2020 version of the Latin Kazakh Alphabet, the letter represents the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate Template:IPAslink, which is similar to Template:IPAslink.

It previously represented a voiceless palatal click Template:IPAslink in Juǀʼhoansi and Naro, though the former has replaced it with Template:Angle bracket and the latter with Template:Angle bracket.

The similarly shaped letter the (Ҫ ҫ) is used in the Cyrillic alphabets of Bashkir and Chuvash to represent Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink, respectively.

In Tatar, ç represents Template:IPAslink.

It also represents the retroflex flap Template:IPAslink in the Rohingya Latin alphabet.

Janalif uses this letter to represent the voiced postalveolar affricate Template:IPAslink

Old Malay uses ç to represent Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink.

Computer

• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar

• Template:Unichar
• Template:Unichar

Input

On Albanian, Belgian, European French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss, Turkish and Italian keyboards, Template:Key press is directly available as a separate key. On most other keyboards, other methods must be used.

See also

• Ҹ
• Ḉ