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C, or c, is the third letter in the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''cee'' (pronounced ), plural ''cees''.


History

"C" comes from the same letter as "G". The Semites named it
gimel Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all ...
. The sign is possibly adapted from an
Egyptian hieroglyph Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,0 ...
for a
staff sling A sling is a projectile weapon typically used to throw a blunt projectile such as a stone, clay, or lead " sling-bullet". It is also known as the shepherd's sling or slingshot (in British English). Someone who specializes in using slings i ...
, which may have been the meaning of the name ''gimel''. Another possibility is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was ''gamal''. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states "It is hard to imagine how gimel = "camel" can be derived from the picture of a camel (it may show his hump, or his head and neck!)". In the
Etruscan language Etruscan () was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventua ...
,
plosive consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s had no contrastive voicing, so the
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
' Γ' (Gamma) was adopted into the
Etruscan alphabet The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD. The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphab ...
to represent . Already in the
Western Greek alphabet Many local variants of the Greek alphabet were employed in ancient Greece during the archaic and early classical periods, until around 400 BC, when they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that is the standard today. All forms ...
, Gamma first took a '' form in Early Etruscan, then '' in Classical Etruscan. In Latin it eventually took the '' form in Classical Latin. In the earliest
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
inscriptions, the letters '' were used to represent the sounds and (which were not differentiated in writing). Of these, '' was used to represent or before a rounded vowel, '' before '', and '' elsewhere. During the 3rd century BC, a modified character was introduced for , and '' itself was retained for . The use of '' (and its variant '') replaced most usages of '' and ''. Hence, in the classical period and after, '' was treated as the equivalent of Greek gamma, and '' as the equivalent of kappa; this shows in the romanization of Greek words, as in 'ΚΑΔΜΟΣ', 'ΚΥΡΟΣ', and 'ΦΩΚΙΣ' came into Latin as '', '' and '', respectively. Other alphabets have letters
homoglyph In orthography and typography, a homoglyph is one of two or more graphemes, characters, or glyphs with shapes that appear identical or very similar. The designation is also applied to sequences of characters sharing these properties. Synoglyph ...
ic to 'c' but not analogous in use and derivation, like the
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
letter Es (С, с) which derives from the lunate
sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used a ...
, named due to its resemblance to the crescent moon.


Later use

When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, represented only , and this value of the letter has been retained in loanwords to all the
insular Celtic languages Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany ...
: in
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
, Irish,
Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, an ...
, represents only . The Old English Latin-based writing system was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence in Old English also originally represented ; the Modern English words ''kin, break, broken, thick'', and ''seek'' all come from Old English words written with : , and . However, during the course of the Old English period, before front vowels ( and ) were palatalized, having changed by the tenth century to , though was still used, as in . On the continent, meanwhile, a similar phonetic change before the same two vowels had also been going on almost all modern romance languages (for example, in Italian). In Vulgar Latin, became palatalized to in Italy and Dalmatia; in France and the Iberian peninsula, it became . Yet for these new sounds was still used before the letters and . The letter thus represented two distinct values. Subsequently, the Latin phoneme (spelled ) de-labialized to meaning that the various Romance languages had before front vowels. In addition, Norman used the letter so that the sound could be represented by either or , the latter of which could represent either or depending on whether it preceded a front vowel letter or not. The convention of using both and was applied to the writing of English after the
Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...
, causing a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. Thus while Old English , remained unchanged, , were now (without any change of sound) spelled , and ; even ('knight') was subsequently changed to and ('thick') changed to or . The Old English was also at length displaced by the French so that the Old English ('queen') and ('quick') became
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...
and , respectively. The sound , to which Old English palatalized had advanced, also occurred in French, chiefly from Latin before . In French it was represented by the digraph , as in ''champ'' (from Latin ) and this spelling was introduced into English: the Hatton Gospels, written , have in Matt. i-iii, , for the of the Old English version whence they were copied. In these cases, the Old English gave way to , and ; on the other hand, in its new value of appeared largely in French words like and , and was also substituted for in a few Old English words, as , in early Middle English . By the end of the thirteenth century both in France and England, this sound de-affricated to ; and from that time has represented before front vowels either for
etymological Etymology () The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words a ...
reasons, as in ''lance, cent'', or to avoid the ambiguity due to the "etymological" use of for , as in ''ace, mice, once, pence, defence''. Thus, to show etymology, English spelling has ''advise'', ''devise'' (instead of ''*advize'', ''*devize''), while ''advice, device, dice, ice, mice, twice'', etc., do not reflect etymology; example has extended this to ''hence, pence, defence'', etc., where there is no etymological reason for using . Former generations also wrote ''sence'' for ''sense''. Hence, today the
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
and
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
have a common feature inherited from
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
spelling conventions where takes on either a "hard" or "soft" value depending on the following letter.


Pronunciation and use


English

In
English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, ...
, generally represents the "soft" value of before the letters (including the Latin-derived digraphs and , or the corresponding ligatures and ), , and , and a "hard" value of before any other letters or at the end of a word. However, there are a number of exceptions in English: "
soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
" and "
Celt The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...
" are words that have where would be expected. The "soft" may represent the sound in the digraph when this precedes a vowel, as in the words 'delicious' and 'appreciate', and also in the word "ocean" and its derivatives. The digraph most commonly represents , but can also represent (mainly in words of
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
origin) or (mainly in words of
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
origin). For some dialects of English, it may also represent in words like ''loch'', while other speakers pronounce the final sound as . The trigraph always represents . The digraph is often used to represent the sound after short vowels, like "wicket". C is the twelfth most frequently used letter in the English language (after E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, and L), with a frequency of about 2.8% in words.


Other languages

In the Romance languages
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, Spanish, Italian,
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
and Portuguese, generally has a "hard" value of and a "soft" value whose pronunciation varies by language. In French, Portuguese, Catalan and Spanish from Latin America and some places in Spain, the soft value is as it is in English. In the Spanish spoken in most of Spain, the soft is a
voiceless dental fricative The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
. In Italian and
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
, the soft is . Germanic languages usually use c for Romance loans or digraphs, such as and , but the rules vary across languages. Dutch uses the most, for all Romance loans and the digraph , but unlike English, does not use for native Germanic words like ''komen'', "come". German uses in the digraphs and , and the trigraph , but only by itself in unassimilated loanwords and place names. Danish keeps soft in Romance words but changes hard to . Swedish has the same rules for soft and hard as Danish, and also uses in the digraph and the very common word ''och'', "and". Norwegian,
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...
, and Icelandic are the most restrictive, replacing all cases of with or , and reserving for unassimilated loanwords and names. All
Balto-Slavic languages The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...
that use the Latin alphabet, as well as Albanian, Hungarian,
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
, several
Sami languages Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
,
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
, Ido, Interlingua, and
Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American ...
(and those aboriginal languages of North America whose practical orthography derives from it) use to represent , the voiceless alveolar or
voiceless dental sibilant affricate A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are several typ ...
. In
Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
, the standard romanization of
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, the letter represents an aspirated version of this sound, . Among non-European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet, represents a variety of sounds. Yup'ik, Indonesian, Malay, and a number of African languages such as Hausa, Fula, and
Manding Manding may refer to: * Manding languages, a language-dialect continuum in West Africa * Mandinka (disambiguation) ** Mandinka language, one of the Manding languages ** Mandinka people, a West African ethnic group * The Mandé peoples who speak ...
share the soft Italian value of . In
Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
, Crimean Tatar, Kurmanji Kurdish, and Turkish stands for the voiced counterpart of this sound, the voiced postalveolar affricate . In Yabem and similar languages, such as Bukawa, stands for a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
. Xhosa and Zulu use this letter to represent the click . In some other African languages, such as
Berber languages The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
, is used for . In Fijian, stands for a
voiced dental fricative The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engl ...
, while in
Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somali ...
it has the value of . The letter is also used as a transliteration of Cyrillic in the Latin forms of
Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...
,
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, and sometimes
Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...
, along with the digraph .


Other systems

As a
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
symbol, lowercase is the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
(IPA) and X-SAMPA symbol for the voiceless palatal plosive, and capital is the X-SAMPA symbol for the voiceless palatal fricative.


Digraphs

There are several common digraphs with , the most common being , which in some languages (such as
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
) is far more common than alone. takes various values in other languages. As in English, , with the value , is often used after short vowels in other
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
such as German and Swedish (other Germanic languages, such as Dutch and Norwegian, use instead). The digraph is found in Polish and in Hungarian, representing and respectively. The digraph represents in Old English, Italian, and a few languages related to Italian (where this only happens before
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s, while otherwise it represents ). The trigraph represents in German.


Related characters


Ancestors, descendants and siblings

*𐤂 : Semitic letter
Gimel Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all ...
, from which the following symbols originally derive ** :
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letter
Gamma Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; ''gámma'') is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter r ...
, from which C derives ***G g : Latin letter G, which is derived from Latin C ****Ȝ ȝ : Latin letter Ȝ, which is derived from Latin G * Phonetic alphabet symbols related to C: ** : Small c with curl **ʗ : Stretched c **𝼏 : Stretched c with curl - Used by Douglas Beach for a nasal click in his phonetic description of Khoekhoe **𝼝 : Small letter c with retroflex hook - Para-IPA version of the
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...
retroflex tʂ **ꟲ : Modifier letter capital c - Used to mark tone for the Chatino orthography in Oaxaca, Mexico; Used as a generic transcription for a falling tone; Used in para-
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...
notation * : Modifier letter small c * : Modifier letter small c with curl *ᴄ : Small capital c is used in the
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nes ...
. *Ꞔ ꞔ : C with palatal hook, used for writing
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
using the early draft version of
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
romanization during the mid-1950s Add to C with diacritics *C with
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s: Ć ć Ĉ ĉ Č č Ċ ċ Ḉ ḉ Ƈ ƈ C̈ c̈ Ȼ ȼ Ç ç
In typesetting, the hook or tail is a diacritic mark attached to letters in many alphabets. In shape it looks like a hook and it can be attached below as a descender, on top as an ascender and sometimes to the side. The orientation of the hoo ...
Ꞓ ꞓ *Ↄ ↄ :
Claudian letters The Claudian letters were developed by the Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). He introduced three new letters to the Latin alphabet: *Ↄ or ↃϹ/X (''antisigma'') to replace BS and PS, much as X stood in for CS and GS. The shape o ...


Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols

*© :
copyright symbol The copyright symbol, or copyright sign, (a circled capital letter C for copyright), is the symbol used in copyright notices for works other than sound recordings. 17 U.S.C. The use of the symbol is described by the Universal Copyright Co ...
*℃ : degree Celsius *¢ :
cent Cent may refer to: Currency * Cent (currency), a one-hundredth subdivision of several units of currency * Penny (Canadian coin), a Canadian coin removed from circulation in 2013 * 1 cent (Dutch coin), a Dutch coin minted between 1941 and 1944 * ...
*₡ : colón (currency) *₢ : Brazilian cruzeiro (currency) *₵ : Ghana cedi (currency) *₠ :
European Currency Unit The European Currency Unit (, ; , ECU, or XEU) was a unit of account used by the European Economic Community and composed of a basket of member country currencies. The ECU came in to operation on 13 March 1979 and was assigned the ISO 42 ...
CE *\mathbb : blackboard bold C, denoting the
complex number In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the fo ...
s *ℭ : blackletter C *Ꜿ ꜿ :
Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
abbreviation for
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
syllables con- and com-, Portuguese -us and -os


Code points

These are the
code point In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s for the forms of the letter in various systems : 1 In Unicode, C is also encoded in various font styles for mathematical purposes; see
Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is a Unicode block comprising styled forms of Latin and Greek letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles. The letters in various fonts o ...
.


Other representations


Use as a number

In the
hexadecimal In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, he ...
(base 16) numbering system, C is a number that corresponds to the number 12 in
decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...
(base 10) counting.


See also

*
Hard and soft C In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages, including English, a distinction between hard and soft occurs in which represents two distinct phonemes. The sound of a hard often precedes the non-front vowels , and , and is that ...
*
Speed of light The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
, ''c''


References


External links

* * * {{Latin script, C} ISO basic Latin letters