Sound laws · Law 9 · Consonants

C before E and I

C (before E, I)

Spanish

θ (c, z); s where there is seseo

French

s (c, ç)

Italian

tʃ (c)

Portuguese

s (c, ç); z [z] between vowels

Romanian

tʃ (c)

Catalan

s (c, ç); between vowels lost, or u at the end (veí, deu)

What happened

In late spoken Latin, k before a front vowel was pulled forward toward the palate, becoming an affricate, ts in the west and tʃ in Italy and the Balkans. Italian and Romanian stopped at tʃ. French, Portuguese and Catalan simplified ts to s in the Middle Ages (voiced to z between vowels, which Catalan then often lost), and Spanish turned its ts, via a dental s, into the θ of Peninsular Spanish around the 16th–17th centuries.

Examples

Latin	Italian	Spanish	French	Portuguese	Romanian	Catalan	English relative
CAELUM‘sky’	cielo	cielo	ciel	céu	cer	cel	celestial
CENTUM‘hundred’	cento	cien	cent	cem	—	cent	century
CĪVITĀTEM‘city (ro cetate 'fortress')’	città	ciudad	cité	cidade	cetate	ciutat	city
CERVUM‘deer’	cervo	ciervo	cerf	cervo	cerb	cérvol
DECEM‘ten’	dieci	diez	dix	dez	zece	deu	decimal
VĪCĪNUM‘neighbour’	vicino	vecino	voisin	vizinho	vecin	veí	vicinity

Decoder

Spanish ce, ci, z [θ] = French, Portuguese and Catalan ce, ci [s] = Italian and Romanian ce, ci [tʃ]: cielo, ciel, céu, cer look alike but sound different. The letters usually match; only the sound shifts.

Exceptions

Latin American, Canarian and much Andalusian Spanish say s, not θ (seseo). Between vowels French and Portuguese voiced the sound to z (voisin, vizinho), and Spanish wrote z at the end of a word (diez). Catalan cérvol is built on a diminutive. C before A, O, U stays hard everywhere but French (see ca-to-cha).

Watch it happen: CĪVITĀTEM

What happened

Examples

Decoder

Exceptions

In your word bank