C is the third letter of the Roman alphabet. In the Etruscan language, plosive consonants had no distinctive voicing, so they took over Greek &Gamma (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/.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Some scholars claim that the Semitic ג (gîmel) pictured a camel. /k/ developed palatal and velar allophones in Latin, probably due to Etruscan influence. Therefore, C has many different sound values today, among them /k/ and /s/ in French, /k/ and /T/ (like English TH in THIN) in European Castilian, /T/ in Fijian, /k/ and /tS/ (like English CH) in Italian, /dZ/ in Turkish, Tatar, Azeri; /ts/ in Czech, Esperanto and so on.

Charlie represents the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In context, C can also stand for:

See also: Ç, Ĉ, ¢

Two-letter combinations starting with C: