Hard and soft C
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In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages (including English), a distinction between hard and soft ‹c› occurs in which ‹c› represents two distinct phonemes. The sound of a hard ‹c› (which often precedes the non-front vowels ‹a o u›) is usually [k] (as in car) while the sound of a soft ‹c› (typically before ‹i› or ‹e›), depending on language, may be a fricative or affricate. In English, the sound of soft ‹c› is /s/ as in cent).
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[edit] History
This alternation has its origins in 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]. Later, other languages not descended from Latin, such as English, inherited this feature as an orthographic convention.
[edit] European languages
All modern Romance languages make the hard/soft distinction with ‹c›, except a few that have undergone spelling reforms such as Ladino and Haitian Creole. Some non-Romance languages like German and Dutch use ‹c› in loanwords and also make this distinction. The soft ‹c› pronunciation, which occurs before ‹i›, ‹e›, and ‹y› is /tʃ/ in Italian and Romanian; /s/ in French, Portuguese, Catalan, Latin American Spanish, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages; and /θ/ in European Spanish. The hard ‹c› occurs in all other positions and represents /k/ in all these aforementioned languages. The ‹c› is always hard in Insular Celtic languages — but is always soft in Slavic languages and Hungarian, where it represents /ts/.
In Italian and Romanian, the orthographic convention for representing /k/ before front vowels is to add ‹h› (Italian chiaro, /kjaro/ 'clear'). In French, Catalan, and Portuguese, a cedilla is used to indicate a soft /s/ pronunciation when it would otherwise seem to be hard. (French garçon, /gaʀsõ/, 'boy'; Portuguese coração, /koɾasɐ̃u/, 'heart').
[edit] English
[edit] General overview
In English orthography, the pronunciation of hard ‹c› is /k/ and that of soft ‹c› is /s/ (The historic Yod-coalescence changed instances of /sj/ to /ʃ/ in words like ocean, logician and magician). The soft ‹c› pronunciation occurs before ‹i e y› as well as ‹ae› and ‹oe› in a number of Greek loanwords (e.g. coelacanth, caecum), and the hard ‹c› pronunciation occurs elsewhere except in digraphs and trigraphs such as ‹sc› , ‹ch›, and ‹sch› which have their own pronunciation rules.
Exceptions, though few, include:
- Celt and Celtic are pronounced with a hard ‹c› unless referring to the sports teams (see Pronunciation of Celtic); and similarly for other words borrowed from Celtic languages such as ceilidh, cistvaen (can also be spelt kistvaen), and Cymric.
- arcing, soccer, and recce are pronounced with a hard ‹c›;
- Quebecer is pronounced with a hard ‹c›, though the word is also spelled ‹Quebecker›;
- sceptic, and its derivatives such as sceptical and scepticism, have the ‹sc› combination in the beginning of these words pronounced as /sk/. In some areas, notably the U.S., the spellings ‹skeptic›, ‹skeptical›, etc. are preferred.
- Another example worth mentioning here, which has overtones of the various prior examples, is flaccid. Its double-‹c› combination produces a single soft pronunciation (i.e. /ˈflæsɪd/ rather than the expected /ˈflæksɪd/
- Finally, ‹c› is silent before ‹t› in the word indict and derivatives such as indictment as well as in the name of the U.S. state Connecticut.
A silent ‹e› can occur at the end of a word — or at the end of a component root word that is part of a larger word — after ‹c›. In this situation, the ‹e› usually serves a marking function that helps to indicate that the ‹c› immediately before it is soft. Examples include dance and enhancement. Such a silent ‹e› also indicates that the vowel before ‹c› is a historic long vowel, as in rice, mace, and pacesetter.
When adding suffixes with ‹i e y› (such as -ed, -ing, -er, -est, -ism, -ist, -edness, and -ingness), or -(l)y–related suffixes (including -ily, -iness, -edly, -ingly, -ier, and -iest) 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.
For example, the words dance can become, with some of the aforementioned suffixes added, words such as danced/dancing/dancer/dancingly.
Other orthographic strategies to reinforce a hard or soft pronunciation is the use of digraphs like ‹ck› (always hard) and use of a cedilla to indicate a soft pronunciation where it would otherwise be hard (garçon and soupçon).
There are exceptions to this general patterns, such as such as -ify and -ise/-ize; these are occasionally added to root forms in order to create rarely-used words or neologisms. Whether the pronunciation of ‹c› is hard or soft in these words is not always clear.
There are several cases in English that exhibit alternations between a hard and soft ‹c› upon suffixation. For example, contrast critic with criticism; electric with electricity.[1] In all these cases, ‹c› is soft before front vowels, but hard when otherwise, which mimics the general pattern of English spelling.
[edit] Letter combinations
A number of two-letter combinations or digraphs follow their own pronunciation patterns and, as such, don't follow the hard/soft distinction of ‹c›. For example, ‹ch› often represents /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.
Other than a few rare examples (recce, soccer, Speccy, etc), ‹cc› fits neatly with the regular rules of ‹c›: before ‹i e y›, the second ‹c› is soft while the first is hard. So, words such as succeed and success are pronounced with /ks/ and words such as succumb and accommodate have just /k/. Exceptions include loanwords from Italian.
Atypically, several placenames and other proper nouns with -cester (derived from Old English ceaster, which means a Roman station or walled town), such as Worcester, Gloucester, and Leicester are pronounced with /stə(r)/ (e.g., Worcester /ˈwʊstə(r)/; Leicester /ˈlɛstə(r)/). Essentially, an /s/ pronunciation occurs partly from a historically soft ‹c› pronunciation as well as historic elision.
[edit] Italian loanwords
The adoption of Italian loanwords has retained both the Italian spelling and pronunciation fairly closely. As a result, many English words that have been imported from Italian follow a distinct set of pronunciation rules corresponding to those in Italian. Most importantly, the Italian soft ‹c› pronunciation is /tʃ/ (e.g. cello or ciao), while the hard ‹c› is the same as in English. However, Italian orthography differs from English in using ‹ch› to represent a hard pronunciation before ‹e› or ‹i›.
In addition to hard and soft ‹c›, the digraph ‹sc› represents /ʃ/ when followed by ‹e› or ‹i› (e.g. crescendo and fascia) and ‹cc› differs from normal English orthography by acting like a singular ‹c› so that cappuccino is pronounced with /ˌkæpəˈtʃinoʊ/, with no /k/.
[edit] Suffixation issues
Rarely, the use of unusual suffixed forms to create neologisms occurs. For example, the words sac and bloc are both standard words but adding -iness or -ism (both productive affixes in English) would create spellings that seem to indicate soft ‹c› pronunciations. (saciness and blocism). Potential remedies include altering the spelling to sackiness and blockism, though no standard conventions exist.
[edit] Use of ‹k›
Sometimes ‹k› replaces ‹c›, ‹ck›, or ‹qu› in product names (e.g. Kool-Aid, Nesquik). Similarly, the hard ‹c› is frequently replaced by a ‹k› in Mortal Kombat and Donkey Kong franchise. Further usue of ‹k› is found as a trope for giving words a hard-edged or whimsical feel. Such as singer Akon's 2006-release album Konvicted. More intensely, this use of ‹k› has also been used to give extreme right-wing or racist connotations. Examples include Amerika or Amerikkka (where the ‹k› is reminiscent of German and the totalitarian Nazi regime as well as the racist Ku Klux Klan).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Because of sound changes, electrician has a soft ‹c› pronunciation with /ʃ/ like the sound of ship.
