{ "id": "epm6hn498p", "slug": "c-epm6hn498p", "title": "Ç", "updated": "2026-10-25", "topic_path": [ { "id": "society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society" }, { "id": "society.language", "label": "Languages and linguistics", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.language" }, { "id": "society.language.writing", "label": "Writing and notation systems", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.language.writing" }, { "id": "society.language.writing.writing.latin", "label": "Latin script", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/society.language.writing.writing.latin" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.language.writing", "label": "Western Europe · 1000 to 1799: Writing and notation systems", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.language.writing", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000", "label": "Western Europe · 1000 to 1799", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society", "label": "Society and history", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.language", "label": "Languages and linguistics", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.language" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1000.society.language.writing", "label": "Writing and notation systems", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1000.society.language.writing" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Ç (c with cedilla, Unicode U+00C7/U+00E7) is a Latin letter marking soft c in French, Portuguese, and Catalan and the ch sound in Turkish; dropped from the Spanish alphabet in 1775.", "snippet": "Ç (c with cedilla, Unicode U+00C7/U+00E7) is a Latin letter marking soft c in French, Portuguese, and Catalan and the ch sound in Turkish; dropped from the Spanish alphabet in 1775.", "node": "society.language.writing.writing.latin", "markdown": "# Ç\n\n**Ç** (lowercase **ç**), called C with cedilla, is a Latin-script letter formed by adding the cedilla, a small hook-shaped mark, beneath the letter C. In [Romance languages](https://www.edgepedia.org/romance-languages) such as French, Portuguese, and Catalan it marks a soft, s-like pronunciation of c before the vowels a, o, and u, where plain c would be read as /k[1](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html). In Turkish it instead denotes a voiceless affricate, the sound written \"ch\" in English[2](https://bqta.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/reconnaitre-les-langues-UE.pdf). The letter is encoded in Unicode as U+00C7 (capital) and U+00E7 (lowercase), Latin Capital/Small Letter C with [Cedilla](https://www.edgepedia.org/cedilla)[3](https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U%2B00C7).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Unicode code points | Ç U+00C7 and ç U+00E7, Latin (Capital/Small) Letter C with Cedilla[3](https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U%2B00C7) |\n| Canonical decomposition | In NFD both decompose to C plus the combining cedilla U+0327[4](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/) |\n| Name origin | From Spanish *cedilla* (older *zedilla*), literally \"little z\", a diminutive of the Greek letter zeta[5](https://www.etymonline.com/word/cedilla) |\n| Sound in Romance languages | Marks an s-like value of c before a, o, and u, as in French *garçon* and Portuguese *canção*[1](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html) |\n| Sound in Turkish | A voiceless affricate like English \"ch\"; Turkish also places a cedilla under s (ş)[2](https://bqta.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/reconnaitre-les-langues-UE.pdf) |\n| Spanish history | Dropped from the Spanish alphabet in 1775[6](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/la-letra-que-desaparecio-del-alfabeto-espanol-y-si-existe-en-el-abecedario-catalan-n/) |\n| Languages using it | Catalan, Basque, Turkish, Tatar, French, Occitan, Walloon, English, Azerbaijani, Portuguese, Kurdish, Turkmen, Spanish, and Albanian[7](https://arhiiv.eki.ee/letter/chardata.cgi?lang=az&script=latin) |\n\n## Function in individual languages\n\n**Romance languages.** In French, Portuguese, and Catalan the cedilla resolves an ambiguity of the plain letter c, which is pronounced /k/ before the vowels a, o, and u. The mark signals that the c keeps the soft, s-like value it otherwise has before e and i; examples include French *façade* and *garçon* and Portuguese *açaí* and *coração*[1](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html). In Catalan the grapheme is called *ce trencada* (\"broken c\") and is written only before a, o, and u, never before e or i: *força*, *caça*, but *forces*, *forcis*[8](https://www.cpnl.cat/gramatica/41/1-l-alfabet).\n\n**Turkish and related languages.** In Turkish, ç denotes a voiceless affricate, the sound written \"ch\" in English, and the language pairs it with ş, an s with cedilla; Turkish does not place a cedilla under t[2](https://bqta.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/reconnaitre-les-langues-UE.pdf). Azerbaijani, whose alphabet is very similar to Turkish, uses the same letter[2](https://bqta.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/reconnaitre-les-langues-UE.pdf).\n\n**Spanish history.** In medieval and classical Spanish the ç marked, before a, o, and u, the same soft articulation that c had before e and i[1](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html). Its use declined after a sixteenth-century orthographic reform, and the letter disappeared from the Spanish alphabet in 1775[1](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html) • [6](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/la-letra-que-desaparecio-del-alfabeto-espanol-y-si-existe-en-el-abecedario-catalan-n/). According to the philologist Mila Segarra, the mark itself evolved from a kind of z used in Hispano manuscripts, which also explains the Spanish name meaning \"little z\"[9](https://beteve.cat/cultura/com-escrius-ce-trencada-catala/).\n\n## Typography and encoding\n\nÇ belongs to the Latin-1 Supplement block (range 0080–00FF), so it is available in essentially every modern character set[10](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf). Under Unicode normalization its canonical decomposed form is the plain letter C followed by the combining cedilla (U+0327), and the composed and decomposed forms are canonically equivalent[4](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/).\n\nThe glyph varies by language tradition. In Portuguese and Catalan the traditional connecting cedilla, attached to the bottom curve of the c, is the preferred design for Ç and ç, while French typography often shows a detached cedilla or a stroke passing beneath the letter[11](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/character-design-standards/diacritics). For the s with cedilla used in Turkish, Unicode distinguishes a separate pair of code points (U+015E/U+015F), while modern Romanian text is written with s and t with comma below (U+0218–U+021B), a disunification made because the two marks behave differently in the two languages[12](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.1.0/ch07.pdf). An under-comma glyph remains an acceptable alternative for Ç in some designs[11](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/character-design-standards/diacritics).\n\nBeyond c, the cedilla or a comma below appears under other Latin letters in various alphabets, including s, k, l, n, r, and t[11](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/character-design-standards/diacritics).\n\n## Diacritic complexity and processing\n\nLetters such as ç are the unit of analysis in computational work on diacritics. A 2026 cross-linguistic study of \"diacritic complexity\" by Adi Cohen and Yuval Pinter computed information-theoretic measures of character-diacritic combinations over 24 corpora in 15 languages and found that higher complexity correlates strongly with lower accuracy in diacritics-restoration tasks performed by BERT- and RNN-based models[13](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.27653). Because ç is a precomposed single character rather than a base letter plus combining mark, transcription standards such as OCR-D encode it directly by its Unicode code point without combining marks[14](https://ocr-d.de/en/gt-guidelines/trans/tr_dia_level_2_0.html).\n\n## References\n\n1. [La RAE aclara el nombre del signo ç que tanto llama la atención, HuffPost España](https://www.huffingtonpost.es/sociedad/la-rae-aclara-nombre-signo-c-tanto-llama-atencion-hpe1.html)\n2. [A field guide to recognizing EU languages](https://bqta.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/reconnaitre-les-langues-UE.pdf)\n3. [Unicode Character \"Ç\" (U+00C7), Compart](https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U%2B00C7)\n4. [UAX #15: Unicode Normalization Forms](https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/)\n5. [Cedilla, Etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/cedilla)\n6. [La letra que desapareció del alfabeto español, Diario AS](https://as.com/actualidad/sociedad/la-letra-que-desaparecio-del-alfabeto-espanol-y-si-existe-en-el-abecedario-catalan-n/)\n7. [Letter Database: Azerbaijani (Latin script), EKI](https://arhiiv.eki.ee/letter/chardata.cgi?lang=az&script=latin)\n8. [L'alfabet, Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística](https://www.cpnl.cat/gramatica/41/1-l-alfabet)\n9. [I tu, com escrius la Ç? betevé](https://beteve.cat/cultura/com-escrius-ce-trencada-catala/)\n10. [C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement, Unicode 18.0.0 code chart](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf)\n11. [Character design standards - Diacritics, Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/develop/character-design-standards/diacritics)\n12. [The Unicode Standard, Version 12.0, Chapter 7](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.1.0/ch07.pdf)\n13. [Adi Cohen, Yuval Pinter (2026). The Degree of Language Diacriticity and Its Effect on Tasks. arXiv.](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.27653)\n14. [OCR-D GT Guidelines, Level 2 (diacritics)](https://ocr-d.de/en/gt-guidelines/trans/tr_dia_level_2_0.html)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Writing and notation systems › Latin script*\n\n*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Ç\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Ç](https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p](https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Ç\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/c-epm6hn498p. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Ç is a Latin letter marking soft c in French, Portuguese, and Catalan and the ch sound in Turkish; dropped from the Spanish alphabet in 1775." }