Hard and soft C

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⟩ often precedes the non-front vowels ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩, and is that of the voiceless velar stop, /k/ (as in car). The sound of a soft ⟨c⟩, typically before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨y⟩, may be a fricative or affricate, depending on the language. In English (and not coincidentally also French), the sound of soft ⟨c⟩ is /s/ (as in cell). There was no soft ⟨c⟩ in classical Latin, where it was always pronounced as /k/.

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]. Later, other languages not directly descended from Latin, such as English, inherited this feature as an orthographic convention.

English

General overview In English orthography, the pronunciation of hard ⟨c⟩ is /k/ and of soft ⟨c⟩ is generally /s/. Yod-coalescence has altered instances of /sj/ – particularly in unstressed syllables – to /ʃ/ in most varieties of English, affecting words such as ocean, logician, and magician. Generally, the soft ⟨c⟩ pronunciation occurs before ⟨i e y⟩; it also occurs before ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ in a number of Greek and Latin loanwords (such as coelacanth, caecum, and caesar). The hard ⟨c⟩ pronunciation occurs everywhere else except in the letter combinations ⟨sc⟩, ⟨ch⟩, and ⟨sch⟩ which have their own 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 classical Latin pronunciation of Celtae; see Pronunciation of Celtic. Welsh and Gaelic loanwords in English which retain their native spelling, such as ceilidh, cistvaen (alternatively spelled ⟨kistvaen⟩), and Cymric, are also pronounced hard. The Irish and Welsh languages have no letter K, so all ⟨c⟩s are pronounced hard. Notable exceptions include Celtic F.C. and the basketball team the Boston Celtics, where the soft pronunciation prevails. The ⟨c⟩ is hard in a handful of words like arcing, synced/syncing, chicer (/ʃiːkər/), and Quebecer (alternatively spelled ⟨Quebecker⟩) that involve a word normally spelled with a final ⟨c⟩ followed by an affix starting with ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩; soccer and recce also have a hard ⟨c⟩. The ⟨sc⟩ in sceptic, and its derivatives such 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 facade and limacon, a soft ⟨c⟩ appears before ⟨a o u⟩ and is optionally indicated to be soft by means of attaching a cedilla to its bottom, giving façade, limaçon. The second ⟨c⟩ in supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (a humorous invented word from the eponymous Mary Poppins soundtrack song) is pronounced as a hard ⟨c⟩, separately from the following vowel on the syllable represented by ⟨ex⟩, as it is an assemblage of parts from existing words, here the suffix -istic. A silent ⟨e⟩ can occur after ⟨c⟩ at the end of a word or component root word part of a larger word. The ⟨e⟩ can serve a marking function indicating that the preceding ⟨c⟩ is soft, as in dance and enhancement. The silent ⟨e⟩ often additionally indicates that the vowel before ⟨c⟩ is 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.

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