Why is there a "C" in English if it is duplicated by "K" and "S"?
Why does the letter "C" exist in English when its sounds are duplicated by "K" and "S"? It all started with Latin, where "C" always sounded like "K." For example, …
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Why does the letter "C" exist in English when its sounds are duplicated by "K" and "S"? It all started with Latin, where "C" always sounded like "K." For example, in the name of the great Roman orator Cicero, it was a hard "K."
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, French borrowings brought a new sound: before "E" and "I," "C" became soft, like "S." This is how the words "city" and "cent" appeared, contrasting with "cat."
In Old English, "K" was rare; "C" was often used for the "K" sound. To distinguish Germanic words from French ones, after 1066, "K" began to be used before "E" and "I," as in "king" or "kennel."
The advent of William Caxton's printing press in 1476 fixed many spellings. The Great Vowel Shift (15th-18th centuries) changed pronunciation, but the "C" spelling remained, giving us "cinema" and "cancel" with their historical legacy.
Today, "C" is more than just a tradition. It helps distinguish homonyms like "cell" and "sell" and enriches the language. Its presence is a linguistic document reflecting a thousand-year history of English, from Rome to London.
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