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C
*** Shopping-Tip: C
{{Otheruses1|the letter C itself}}
{{dablink|'''C#''' redirects here. Due to technical limitations, the article on the C# programming language is located at
C Sharp. For information about the musical note C♯, see
musical notation}}
{{AZ|uc=C|lc=c}}
Image:Copyright.svg thumb|100px|'''C''' in Copyright mark
'''C''' (lowercase '''c''') is the third letter of the
Roman alphabet. Its name in
English language English is ''cee'' (
IPA [si:]).
In the
Etruscan language,
plosive consonants had no contrastive
phonation voicing, so the
Greek language Greek Gamma Γ (Gamma) was used to represent /k/. In the beginning, the Romans used C for both /k/ and /g/, only later adding a horizontal bar at right-center to produce
G.
It is possible but uncertain that C represented only /g/ at an even earlier time, while
K might have been used for /k/.
Some scholars claim that the Semitic
Gimel (letter) ג (gîmel) pictured a camel, but most assume it was probably ''gaml'' (a throwing stick/
boomerang).
Other alphabets have letters identical to C in form but not in use and derivation, in particular the
Cyrillic alphabet Cyrillic letter
Es (cyrillic) Es which derives from one form of the
Greek alphabet Greek letter
sigma (letter) sigma, known as the "lunate sigma" from its resemblance to a crescent moon.
Phonetic use
/k/ developed
palatal consonant palatal and
velar consonant velar allophones in
Latin, probably due to Etruscan influence. The
Romance languages and
English language English have a common feature inherited from
Vulgar Latin where C takes on either a "hard" or "soft" value depending on the following vowel. In English and
French language French, C takes the "hard" value
voiceless velar plosive {{IPA|/k/}} finally and before A, O, and U, and the "soft" value
voiceless alveolar fricative {{IPA|/s/}} before E, I, or Y.
Romance languages obey similar rules, but the soft value is different in several languages, taking on
voiceless dental fricative /θ/ in European
Spanish language Castilian and {{IPA|/ʧ/}} (like English CH) in
Italian language Italian and
Romanian language Romanian.
Other languages use C with different values, such as {{IPA|/k/}} regardless of position in
Irish language Irish,
Welsh language Welsh, {{IPA|/θ/}} in
Fijian language Fijian, {{IPA|/ʤ/}} in
Turkish language Turkish,
Tatar language Tatar,
Azeri language Azeri, {{IPA|/ʧ/}} in
Tagalog,
Bahasa Indonesia,
Malay language Malay, {{IPA|/ʦ/}} in
Czech language Czech,
Croatian language Croatian,
Esperanto,
Hungarian language Hungarian,
Polish language Polish,
Pinyin Romanized Chinese language Chinese,
Serbian language Serbian,
Latvian language Latvian.
There are several common digraphs with C, the most common being CH, which in some languages such as
German language German is far more common than C alone. In English, CH most commonly takes the value {{IPA|/ʧ/}}, but can take the value {{IPA|/k/}}, {{IPA|/ʃ/}}, or
voiceless velar fricative {{IPA|/x/}}, usually when transliterating
Greek language Greek Χ or Hebrew. CH takes various values in other languages, such as
Voiceless palatal fricative {{IPA|/ç/}}, {{IPA|/k/}}, or {{IPA|/x/}} in German,
Voiceless postalveolar fricative {{IPA|/ʃ/}} in
French language French, {{IPA|/k/}} in Italian, {{IPA|/ʈʂʰ/}} in
Mandarin Chinese, and so forth. CK, with the value {{IPA.html">Germanic languages such as English, German and
Swedish.html" title="Meaning of k/}},_is often used after short vowels in Swedish">Swedish language|Swedish (but some other Germanic languages use KK instead, such as
Dutch language Dutch and
Norwegian language Norwegian). The digraph CZ is found in Polish and CS in Hungarian, both representing {{IPA|/ʧ/}}. In Old English, sc made the {{IPA|/ʃ/}}.
As a
phonetic symbol, lowercase c is the
International Phonetic Alphabet and
X-SAMPA symbol for the
voiceless palatal plosive, and capital C is the
X-SAMPA symbol for the
voiceless palatal fricative.
Codes for computing
{{Letter
|NATO=Charlie
|Morse=–·–·
|B1=â—?
|B2=â—‹
|B3=â—‹
|B4=â—?
|B5=â—‹
|B6=â—‹
}}
In
Unicode the
majuscule capital C is codepoint U+0043 and the
minuscule lowercase c is U+0063.
The
ASCII code for capital C is 67 and for lowercase c is 99; or in
Binary numeral system binary 01000011 and 01100011, respectively.
The
EBCDIC code for capital C is 195 and for lowercase c is 131.
The
numeric character references in
HTML and
XML are "
C" and "
c" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for C
* A c with a bar over it is an abbreviation for the
Latin word "cum", meaning "with".
* In
anatomy, C means
cervical (cervix meaning "neck"), as in C-spine, or written with a number refers to a numbered
Cervical vertebrae cervical vertebra (
C1 to
C7) or cervical
spinal nerve (C1 - C8)
* In
astronomy,
** C stands for comet (long period), as in
C/1957 P1 (Comet Mrkos).
** C stands for a February 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g.
C/1962 C1, Comet Seki-Lines) or asteroid (e.g.
(3950) 1986 CH).
* In
baseball, C is the abbreviation for the position of
catcher.
* In
basketball, C is the abbreviation for the position of
center (basketball) center.
* In
biochemistry, C is the symbol for the
amino acid cysteine and the nitrogenous
nucleic acid base
cytosine.
*
Brassiere cup size '''C'''
* In
business, C is a "creation" initial. It is used for the company name etc. in many Japanese companies.
* In
Canada Canadian television, the '''C'''
Television rating system rating indicates a program intended to be viewed by children.
* In
chemistry, C is the symbol for
carbon.
* In the
CMYK color model, C stands for the color
cyan.
* In
communication, c is an
abbreviation for the word "see" in
Short message service SMS or
instant message.
* In
computing,
** C denotes the
C programming language. Several of its derivatives have names including the letter C, for example
C++,
Objective-C, and
C Sharp programming language C#.
** C is a security division ("Discretionary Protection") in the
TCSEC.
* In
currency, c or ¢ (c with a vertical or slanted bar through it) means
Cent (currency) cent.
* In
economics, C is usually used to represent
consumption.
* In
education, C is an average
Grade (education) grade.
* In
electrical engineering,
** ''C'' is the control grid bias power supply (originally a battery) of
vacuum tube circuitry.
** ''C'' is the
variable for
capacitance, and is used to label
capacitors on
schematics.
** C is a standard size of dry-cell
battery (electricity) battery.
* In
espionage, C is the head of
MI6.
* In
finance, C is the
New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol for
Citigroup.
* In
gold, C is the abbreviation for
Carat (purity) Carat.
* In
hardware, a
C-clamp is a type of
fastener, so called because its shape resembles the capital C.
* In
history, c is an abbreviation for ''circa''. When used with years, it means about (e.g., "c. 1500" means around the year
1500).
* In
international relations, C sometimes represents the
Commonwealth of Nations.
* In
List of international license plate codes international licence plate codes, C stands for
Cuba.
* In
paper size international paper sizes, C is a series of sizes with an aspect ratio of roughly 70% width to height. This series is primarily used for
envelopes.
* In
mathematics,
** C is often used as a
numerical digit digit meaning ''
twelve'' in
hexadecimal and other positional
numeral systems with a
radix of 13 or greater.
**
Blackboard bold (double-struck capital C)
(Unicode {{uplusfirst}}2102 "â„‚") denotes the set of all
complex numbers.
** C with indices denotes the number of
combinations, a
binomial coefficient.
**
Blackletter (Unicode U+212D "â„") denotes the first
beth number: the
cardinality of the set of real numbers (the "continuum"), or of the
power set of
natural numbers.
** ''C''
''n'' and ''C''
∞ are notions of
smooth functions, meaning "continuously differentiable ''n'' times" and "infinitely differentiable", respectively.
* In
metrology, c is the symbol for the
cup (unit) cup, a unit of measurement of volume, used in cooking recipes in several countries.
* In
Microsoft Windows,
Ctrl-C, (in
Mac OS, Command-C)
copy and paste copies the selected text, image or sound and places it on the
clipboard.
* In
music, C is a
note; see also
Middle C
* In
nutrition, C is a
vitamin; see
Vitamin C
* In
physics,
** ''c'' is the
speed of light speed of light in vacuum.
** ''c'' can also be used for the
speed of sound.
** c is the symbol of the charm
quark.
* As the first letter of a
postal code,
** In
Canada, C stands for
Prince Edward Island.
* In
publishing, c with an enclosing circle, ©, denotes
copyright
* In
rail transport, C is the
UIC classification for the
railroad locomotive wheel arrangement known as
0-6-0 in the
Whyte notation; a locomotive with three powered axles (and thus six wheels) in which the axles are linked by gearing or
side rods.
* In
Roman naming convention, C is the abbreviation for the
praenomen Gaius.
* In
Roman numerals, C denotes one
100 (number) hundred (''centum'' in
Latin; there are also separate
Unicode characters for this number, U+216D "â…" and U+217D "â…½").
* On the serial numbers of
United States dollars, C identifies the
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
* In the
SI system,
** c,
centi, is an
SI prefix meaning 1/100.
** C is the symbol for
coulomb, the
SI derived unit for
electric charge.
* In
temperature, °C is the symbol for degrees
Celsius (there is also a separate
Unicode character for this symbol, U+2103 "℃").
* In terminals under
Unix-like operating systems, Ctrl-C sends the
SIGINT (POSIX) INT signal (computing) signal.
* As a
timezone, C is the military designation for UTC+3, also known as MSK or Moscow Time.
See also
*
cedilla Ç,
C-circumflex Ĉ,
Cent (currency) ¢,
Č,
Ć
*С :
Es (Cyrillic)
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*** Shopping-Tip: C
