2862: Cedilla Ç: Why? Oct 22, 2024

The letter Ç, known as a cedille (from French) or a cedilla (from Spanish) is used in Turkic languages, along with a few Romance languages. The origins have been discussed here before including how it originated to represent the /t͡ʃ/ (like CH in English 'chew'), but still begs the question of why specifically the letter C was chosen to be modified, and about its strange name.

The name ‘cedilla’ means ‘little Z’ in Spanish, and likewise with its name in Portuguese and French. This is because is not a C with a comma underneath, c̦,  like in some Eastern European languages (also, those have a space in between), but originated as a combination of the letter C and Z: ꝣ—but in a cursive form like ʒ, similar to the German ß. In both the original /t͡ʃ/ pronunciation, or in the modern French / Portuguese pronunciation which is like /s/, this makes some sense, but why C?

This is because in Romance languages especially, the letter C has a tendency to vary widely depending on the linguistic environment, namely based on which vowel follows. Consider the most, or maybe only, widely used Ç in an English word: façade. In Latin faciēs (meaning, and related to ‘face’) was pronounced with a /k/ sound, which became Italian ‘facciata’ with a /t͡ʃ/ sound, which was then loaned into French with the /s/ sound. Of course, it could have been written with an <s>; it also keeps some remnant of the etymology but also indicates it is not pronounced like /k/—which it normally would be before <a>—the letter Ç is used. 

None of this is true in Turkic languages regarding etymologies, but that the typeface is convenient to have a distinct letter for /t͡ʃ/.