C - Definition


C - Definition

If you were looking for the C, C++, or C# programming languages then see C programming language, C Plus Plus, or C Sharp programming language

Latin alphabet
	Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

C is the third letter of the Roman alphabet.

In the Etruscan language, plosive consonants had no distinctive voicing, so they took over Greek Γ (Gamma) to write their /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 ג (g�mel) pictured a camel.

Contents

1 Phonetic use

2 Alternate representations

2.1 Computing

3 Meanings for C

4 See also

Phonetic use

/k/ developed palatal and velar allophones in Latin, probably due to Etruscan influence. The Romance languages and 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, C takes the "hard" value /k/ finally and before A, O, and U, and the "soft" value /s/ before E, I, or Y. Romance languages obey similar rules, but the soft value is different in several languages, taking on /θ/ in European Castilian and /ʧ/ (like English CH) in Italian and Romanian.

Other languages use C with different values, such as /k/ regardless of position in Welsh /θ/ in Fijian, /ʤ/ in Turkish, Tatar, Azeri, /ʦ/ in Czech, Croatian, Esperanto, Romanized Chinese and so on.

There are several common digraphs with C, the most common being CH, which in some languages such as German is far more common than C alone. In English, CH most commonly takes the value /ʧ/, but can take the value /k/ or /x/, usually when transliterating Greek Χ or Hebrew. CH takes various values in other languages, such as /�/, /k/, or /x/ in German, /ʃ/ in French, /k/ in Italian, /ʈʂʰ/ in Mandarin Chinese, and so forth. CK, with the value /k/, is often used after short vowels in Germanic languages like English, German and Swedish. The digraph CZ is found in Polish and CS in Hungarian, both representing /ʧ/.

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.

Alternate representations

Charlie represents the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In international Morse code the letter C is DahDitDahDit: - � - �

In Braille the letter C is represented as ⠉ (in Unicode), the dot pattern,

XX
..
..

Computing

In Unicode the capital C is codepoint U+0043 and the lowercase c is U+0063.

The ASCII code for capital C is 67 and for lowercase c is 99; or in 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

In baseball, C is the abbreviation for the position of catcher.
In biochemistry, C is the symbol for cysteine and cytosine.
In business, C is a "creation" initial. It is used for the company name etc. in many Japanese companies.
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 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#.
In currency, c with a vertical bar through it (�), is the symbol for cent.
In education, C is an average 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.
In espionage, C is the head of MI6.
In financial securities, C is the stock symbol for Citigroup.
In geometry, c is the length of a hypotenuse on a right-angled triangle when using the formula a² + b² = c².
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 licence plate codes, C stands for Cuba.
In 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 digit meaning twelve in hexadecimal and other positional numeral systems with a radix of 13 or greater.
- Blackboard bold <math>\mathbb{C}<math> denotes the set of complex numbers
- C with indices denotes the number of combinations, a binomial coefficient.
In the Metric system,
- c, centi, is an SI prefix meaning 1/100.
- C is the symbol for coulomb, the SI derived unit for electric charge.
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 in vacuum.
- 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 numerals, C denotes one hundred (centum in Latin).
In temperature, �C is the symbol for degrees Celsius.
As a timezone, C is the military designation for UTC+3, also known as MSK or Moscow Time.