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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1941 (SND Vol. II). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

C, n., letter of alphabet.

1. The form of the letter C can be traced back through the Roman alphabet to the Greek consonant gamma (Γ) = Eng. g as in gun. In earlier Latin it stood for two sounds, viz. the breathed and the voiced back stops, phonetically [k] and [g]. Some time in the third century b.c., C in Latin was restricted to the sound of [k] and its modified form G represented the voiced back stop as in Latin gaudeo. The Roman alphabet, including the two letters C and G, was used by the Gaelic missionaries and adopted from them by O.E. writers. The name of the letter is now as in Eng. [si], but earlier [se] (Sc. 1761 Magopico (1810) 1, say; ne.Sc. 1874 W. Gregor Olden Time 39, ceh; Ags. 1920 D. H. Edwards Muirside 216, say). See also Ah-Bay-Say.Dmb. 1817 J. Walker Poems 71: 
In days o' yore we held it sae, Whan fouk scarce read the A, B, C.

2. In Sc. orthography C [k] is used: (1) at the beginning of a syllable before the vowels a, o, u, e.g. ca', caur, collie, coom, couk, cutty; (2) before the consonants l, r, w, e.g. clyte [kləit], crine [krəin], cweel [kwil]. Note also scr as in scrieve [skri:v] and scl as in sclate [sklet].

3. Ck at the end of a syllable after a short vowel is a digraph = [k], e.g. vrack, geck, bicl, bock, ruck.

4. C before the letters e, i, has the sound of s. The words in this case are generally of Romance origin, as censor, ceevil, cedent, ciel.

5. Ch is a consonantal digraph for a sound now lost in St.Eng. and found in Sc. generally in medial or final position. It is represented in O.E. by the symbol h. In Sc. two varieties are found: (1) [x] a breathed back fricative after the vowels a, o, u, as in Sc. lach, loch, eneuch, rauchle; (2) [] a breathed front fricative after the vowels ei, ie, ee and i [i and ɪ], e.g. Sc. driech, feech, heich, sick [dri, fi, hi, sɪ]. In s.Sc. [x] is pronounced with lip-rounding when the consonant is in contact with a, o, u, as in Ger. auch. See P.L.D. § 111.