# Q/c



## effeundici

Did Q and C have the same pronounciation in Latin?

If yes,why were there 2 different symbols for the same sound?

My surname starts with  *cu* and very often in Italy people write it *qu*. Can I blame the Latins for that?


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## Pinairun

Maybe, maybe. Latins are terrible!


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## relativamente

In the early stages of Latin there were three sounds for the K, depending on the following vowel (or consonant)
When followed by o ou u was used the leter Q, when followed by i and e was used the letter C and hen followed by a and sometines e, l, was used K.
At a certain point the letter K almost desappeared, maybe due to his identification with Karthago, one of the very few words to keep the K.
There must have been different pronuntiation that still exist in RL and you can see in English the different pronuntiation on syllables ca, co, cu and ce, ci


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## brian

effeundici said:


> Did Q and C have the same pronounciation in Latin?



I was taught that they have the same sound.

For example, my teachers said that _cui_ and _qui_ are pronounced identically, that is, KWEE or [kwi:] or something (one syllable), not like Italian _cui_.

In other words, I was taught that both are pronounced just like all other _qu-_'s in English, e.g. _quick_ (one syllable).

The funny part is that people still pronounced _cui_ like _cooey_ (so more like in Italian).


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## CapnPrep

Actually, _cui_ and _qui_ were distinguished in classical Latin (see e.g. _Vox Latina_ and this Wikipedia article) but the consonant [k] was apparently the same in both cases.


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## Flaminius

No, no, *CapnPrep*.  As per Wikipedia, _cui_ represented /kui̯/, and _qui_, /kʷiː/.  From the former, we can see that <c> (where the angled brackets contain the glyph used) represented the phoneme /k/, whereas from the latter we learn that <qu> was for /kʷ/.  This pronunciation is considered as one phoneme because the K element and the W element are uttered at the same time.  Just before airflow is released from the pressure created at the velum, the lips are rounded.  Airflow and unrounding occur at the same time.

Since <q> is not used except before <u>, we can conclude that it does not represent an independent phoneme but is part of a digraph.


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## Kevin Beach

Just to muddy the waters - I was taught a long time ago that C was originally pronounced G and became gradually unvoiced, but I wasn't told when.


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## CapnPrep

Do we really have enough evidence to know if the pronunciation of _qui_ involved [kʷ] or [kw]? This can be pretty difficult to decide even for modern languages. If the former ever existed in Latin, it was eventually replaced by the latter anyway.


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## berndf

Kevin Beach said:


> Just to muddy the waters - I was taught a long time ago that C was originally pronounced G and became gradually unvoiced, but I wasn't told when.


True. But as that time the letter "k" was still widely used in Latin so the question remains why there is a separate k-type letter in Latin.




CapnPrep said:


> Do we really have enough evidence to know if the pronunciation of _qui_ involved [kʷ] or [kw]? This can be pretty difficult to decide even for modern languages. If the former ever existed in Latin, it was eventually replaced by the latter anyway.


The letter Q is derived from the early Greek letter Qoppa which was used before back vowels. The Qoppa in turn was derived from the Phoenician letter Qoph representing the Semitic emphatic, dark "k" sound. This sound doesn't exist in IE languages; hence the letter is useless and was consequently later abandoned in Greek. /k/ before back vowels sounds a bit like a Semitic Qoph. That is probably why the Greeks used it this way. The Latin combination of letters "QV" might well be just a "left over" of this usage without any phonemic relevance. I don't know.


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## Starfrown

CapnPrep said:


> Do we really have enough evidence to know if the pronunciation of _qui_ involved [kʷ] or [kw]? This can be pretty difficult to decide even for modern languages. If the former ever existed in Latin, it was eventually replaced by the latter anyway.


 
This is best addressed by Allen in his _Vox Latina._ Read pages 16-18.



relativamente said:


> In the early stages of Latin there were three sounds for the K, depending on the following vowel (or consonant)
> When followed by o ou u was used the leter Q, when followed by i and e was used the letter C and hen followed by a and sometines e, l, was used K.
> At a certain point the letter K almost desappeared, maybe due to his identification with Karthago, one of the very few words to keep the K.
> There must have been different pronuntiation that still exist in RL and you can see in English the different pronuntiation on syllables ca, co, cu and ce, ci


 


Kevin Beach said:


> Just to muddy the waters - I was taught a long time ago that C was originally pronounced G and became gradually unvoiced, but I wasn't told when.


 
Read page 15 of the link I have provided above.


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## berndf

Interesting reading.



Starfrown said:


> Read page 15 of the link I have provided above.


This seems to be compatible with what I wrote above.



Starfrown said:


> This is best addressed by Allen in his _Vox Latina._ Read pages 16-18.


So, if this is correct then it is not incidental that Latin retained "QV" while "QO" disappeared. When the Geek adopted the Phoenician alphabet, [kʷ] had already disappeared (e.g. _Hikwos>Hippos_) while Latin had retained it (_equus_). So in both languages the distinction between "dark" and "light" /k/ was unnecessary and disappeared but Latin retained "QV" to represent the phoneme [kʷ].


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