From: "David Peterson" <DigitalScream@...>
> This is something that's been bugging me for quite awhile now. In
> English, French and Spanish (don't know about Rumanian or Portuguese)
there's
> this letter "c" that's pronounced either as an /s/ or a /k/, depending on
the
> vowel it preceeds. In classical Latin they say that this letter "c" was
> always pronounced /k/, no matter what the environment. Fair enough. What
my
> question is, is how on Earth did /k/ go to /s/ in ANY environment? I can
> understand /tS/ in Italian (or at least it makes more sense), but /k/>/s/
> seems a reach. Who knows something about this? Was the progression
> /k/>/kj/>/C/>/S/>/s/? And if so, how come there's no remnants of it? Or
are
> there and I just don't know? Anyway, growing up with English and Spanish
as
> my languages, I never questioned "c", but now he's beginning to look a bit
> fishy. Can anyone help?
Hmmm. In Spanish at least, it seems to've been:
/k/ > /kj/ > /cCj/ > /cC/ (palatalization & affrication)
> /ts/ (dentalization)
> /s/ (deaffrication).
*Muke!