Cedilla

A Visigothic z.

The origin of ç

The letter ç originated in the Visigothic script used in Spain in early medieval times. Contrary to what the modern shape and name c-cedilla suggest it is not in origin a c with a diacritic, but a swash form of the letter z.

A form of z like the ʒ now used in IPA for the French sound of j, with a downward curved swash replacing the lower horizontal line, was widespread in medieval scripts. In Spain this form developed a variant with also the upper horizontal line becoming a curved swash. In time this form (No. 3 in the image) became differentiated in use, denoting the voiceless coronal affricate /ts/ while form (1) or (2) denoted the corresponding voiced affricate /dz/. Perhaps it was the use of this letter form for the same sound as c represented before the letters e, i and y that prompted its further development into a form like a c with a tail, through increasing the size of the upper curve while decreasing the size of the lower part.

The name "cedilla"

The word cedilla is originally a diminutive of zeda or ceda, the Spanish name for the letter z, and thus was originally a name for the letter ç, and not just for the ostensible diacritic. Alternative forms in older Spanish were cerilla and ceril. Incidentally cerilla means "friction match" in modern Spanish!

Sources

• ^  The image of the Visigothic z was borrowed from Dr Dianne Tillotson's medieval writing site. She in turn got it from the British Library.

External links

• Cedilla at Wikipedia.
• Visigothic script at Wikipedia.
• Visigothic Script at Dr Dianne Tillotson's medieval writing site.
• Zur Geschichte und Bezeichnung der Cédille in den romanischen Sprachen, PDF by Dr. Andre Klump, Mainz (in German). Dead link!
• Another image showing Visigothic script from the Library of the Medieval Institute at University of Notre Dame. AFAICT unfortunately without any example of z which of course was uncommon in Latin text.