# Cambio de z en c



## Krastief

Hola,

En el subjuntivo, cambiamos en función de la pronunciación pe
expliCar => expliQUe
lleGar => llegUe
para evitar que lo pronunciemos mal.

¿Pero por qué escribimos Organizar => organiCe?
Aquí no se puede pronunciar mal escribiendo organize
Igual con Pez => peces pero Pezes se pronunciaría de la misma manera, ¿no?

Muchas gracias de vuestra ayuda.

Saludos y BUEN FIN DE SEMANA


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## grahamcracker

I may be wrong, but if "organizar" is properly written in the subjuntive as organice, then the "ce" sounds like the "se" sound. The change to "que" changes the consonant to a hard sound. It is a different sound from the "ce".


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## grahamcracker

http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation/organizar


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## germanbz

grahamcracker said:


> I may be wrong, but if "organizar" is properly written in the subjuntive as organice, then the "ce" sounds like the "se" sound. The change to "que" changes the consonant to a hard sound. It is a different sound from the "ce".



ca /ka/ Canadá           za /@a/ zapato
ce /@e/ Cera, Ceilán    ze /@e/ Zen
ci /@i/  Cigarro            zi /@i/ Zimbawe
co /ko/ Coco, Corea      zo /@o/ Zozobrar
cu /ku/ Cumbia, Curso    zu (@u/ Zumo

As you can see, "ce" doesn't change its sound to "se". That is a dialectal regional speaking but not grammatical.


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## blasita

Hola:

La regla no tiene que ver con la pronunciación de 'z' o 'c'. La 'z' se convierte en 'c' delante de 'e'; ej. en plurales: _pez - peces.

_Un saludo.


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## duvija

Exacto. Y agrego: no se debe usar z antes de e/i. (salvo en contados ejemplos que están en todos los diccionarios, como 'zen/zenit/zinc/zeta, etc.')


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## grahamcracker

germanbz said:


> ca /ka/ Canadá           za /@a/ zapato
> ce /@e/ Cera, Ceilán    ze /@e/ Zen
> ci /@i/  Cigarro            zi /@i/ Zimbawe
> co /ko/ Coco, Corea      zo /@o/ Zozobrar
> cu /ku/ Cumbia, Curso    zu (@u/ Zumo
> 
> As you can see, "ce" doesn't change its sound to "se". That is a dialectal regional speaking but not grammatical.


You misunderstood my point.

The Spanish spelling "que" never sounds like the Spanish spelling "ce". Correct? Explicar maintains the same consonant ending sound "car" but changes the spelling to "que" to maintain that consonant sound while changing the vowel ending to "e". While there are exceptions like you noted, those exceptions are rare and break the general rule. But there IS a rule. Rules are seldom so universal and rigid that they allow no exceptions. But they are the pattern.

Organizar's change to the subjunctive is predictable in that if a non-native (like me) hears "organice", I will know that it is spelled with the ending "ce". If I hear llegar change to "llegue", I am not likely to imagine that it is spelled "llege" because that absence of the "u" changes the final syllable. Knowing that a word like "Cera" is of no help to me because it breaks the normal rule.


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## inib

grahamcracker said:


> You misunderstood my point.
> 
> The Spanish spelling "que" never sounds like the Spanish spelling "ce". Correct? Explicar maintains the same consonant ending sound "car" but changes the spelling to "que" to maintain that consonant sound while changing the vowel ending to "e". While there are exceptions like you noted, those exceptions are rare and break the general rule. But there IS a rule. Rules are seldom so universal and rigid that they allow no exceptions. But they are the pattern.
> 
> Organizar's change to the subjunctive is predictable in that if a non-native (like me) hears "organice", I will know that it is spelled with the ending "ce". If I hear llegar change to "llegue", I am not likely to imagine that it is spelled "llege" because that absence of the "u" changes the final syllable. Knowing that a word like "Cera" is of no help to me because it breaks the normal rule.


I'm afraid I'm missing your point too. Why does "cera" break the normal rule?
I can see Krastief's point. "_Organize_" would probably be pronounced the same as "organice", if the former existed, but as has been explained above, the rule is that you use "c" before "i" or "e", not that you have to change the spelling according to the pronunciation.


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## grahamcracker

inib said:


> I'm afraid I'm missing your point too. Why does "cera" break the normal rule?
> I can see Krastief's point. "_Organize_" would probably be pronounced the same as "organice", if the former existed, but as has been explained above, the rule is that you use "c" before "i" or "e", not that you have to change the spelling according to the pronunciation.


Maybe I didn't get all of krastief's question because it was written in Spanish and I am admittedly still working my way through to fluency.

Krastief was trying to figure out why "organizar" conjugated "organice" and not "organique".  My initial response focused on the spelling and not on the reason its conjugation failed to follow the pattern of llegar and explicar. But given his phrasing of the question, I think it is logical that I understood it how I did. But maybe he wanted to know why it was conjugated as it was but I didn't take it that way.

He wanted to know why "origanice" was not written "origanique".

It seems clear to me that  it could not be spelled organique because that would change the pronuciation. I was making the point that organizar changed to the spelling of "ce" as I would expect of Spanish verbs. I don't remember seeing any verbs ending in "ze" in their conjugated forms. But several do ending "ce."

Germanbz said: "As you can see, "ce" doesn't change its sound to "se". That is a dialectal regional speaking but not grammatical."

My point had to do with Spanish verb endings, not proper nouns. I don't even know why he brought them up unless he thought I was saying that the "c" always sounds like the "s". I wasn't. I was talking about the endings of Spanish verbs. If I am wrong about a general rule of Spanish verb endings spelled "ce" and sounding like "se", then tell me. If I am right, then please support me. If you think I misunderstood the original OP (possibly), then I only failed to aid the original OP by citing rules that don't apply to the question. (That is certainly possible too.)


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## inib

grahamcracker said:


> Maybe I didn't get all of krastief's question because it was written in Spanish and I am admittedly still working my way through to fluency.
> 
> Krastief was trying to figure out why "organizar" conjugated "organice" and not "organique". My initial response focused on the spelling and not on the reason its conjugation failed to follow the pattern of llegar and explicar. But given his phrasing of the question, I think it is logical that I understood it how I did. But maybe he wanted to know why it was conjugated as it was but I didn't take it that way.
> 
> He wanted to know why "origanice" was not written "origanique".
> 
> It seems clear to me that it could not be spelled organique because that would change the pronuciation. I was making the point that organizar changed to the spelling of "ce" as I would expect of Spanish verbs. I don't remember seeing any verbs ending in "ze" in their conjugated forms. But several do ending "ce."
> 
> Germanbz said: "As you can see, "ce" doesn't change its sound to "se". That is a dialectal regional speaking but not grammatical."
> 
> My point had to do with Spanish verb endings, not proper nouns. I don't even know why he brought them up unless he thought I was saying that the "c" always sounds like the "s". I wasn't. I was talking about the endings of Spanish verbs. If I am wrong about a general rule of Spanish verb endings spelled "ce" and sounding like "se", then tell me. If I am right, then please support me. If you think I misunderstood the original OP (possibly), then I only failed to aid the original OP by citing rules that don't apply to the question. (That is certainly possible too.)


Don't worry, Graham. I think we can see where the misunderstanding has arisen from now. My reading is that Krastief wanted to know why _organice _is written as such and not_ organi*z*e_ (I don't think his/her doubt was about the option of a "q", although he/she made a comparison, which , to my eyes, is not valid, but perfectly understandable)


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## grahamcracker

inib said:


> Don't worry, Graham. I think we can see where the misunderstanding has arisen from now. My reading is that Krastief wanted to know why _organice _is written as such and not_ organi*z*e_ (I don't think his/her doubt was about the option of a "q", although he/she made a comparison, which , to my eyes, is not valid, but perfectly understandable)


Okay, you may be right since no one interpreted it as I did. But would it be correct to say that the "se" sound is almost never written "ze"? Technically there may be no rule against it except that in my English Spanish dictionary, I don't find a single one. Several English words beginning with "ze" are orthographically written as "ce". Spanish has a number of "se" words and "ce" words but few or no "ze". Every language has several vowel and consonant combinations that are highly unusual for that language. English often follows the original foreign form of spelling for foreign language words--- as closely as possible, but Spanish generally changes them to conform with Spanish phonetic rules.


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## Lurrezko

There are few words containing ze: for instance, the name of the letter (_zeta_) and some old spellings (_zebra_). I understand that the OP thought that changing _explicar_ into _explique_ (to keep the /k/ sound) is logical, but was wondering why we change _organizar_ into _organice_, since _organize/organice_ are pronounced exactly the same.

Saludos


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## grahamcracker

Lurrezko said:


> There are few words containing ze: for instance, the name of the letter (_zeta_) and some old spellings (_zebra_). I understand that the OP thought that changing _explicar_ into _explique_ (to keep the /k/ sound) is logical, but was wondering why we change _organizar_ into _organice_, since _organize/organice_ are pronounced exactly the same.
> 
> Saludos


And my answer to that would be that normally Spanish doesn't write that sound with the letter "z" even though there is nothing wrong with it technically.

I figured you guys could come up with a few examples of Spanish words written "ze", even if they don't appear in my dictionary.


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## blasita

I must say that I'm a bit lost: I really don't know whether there's still a problem/a question or not. I think that the general rule about the change of _z_ into _c_ was given above.


grahamcracker said:


> I figured you guys could come up with a few examples of Spanish words written "ze", even if they don't appear in my dictionary.



As to words written 'ze', there are a few but not many, _for example (I'm sure there are some more)_: _zen, zéjel, zelota/zelote, zendo, zepelín, zeta,_ _zeugma, _and proper names. And yes, some become 'ce' (e.g. _cebra_) or can be written both ways (e.g. _zedilla/cedilla_).


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## luo.mai

Todo el mundo sabe que hay una regla que nos exige sustituir la zeta por ce antes de i/e. La pregunta de Krastief es *¿por qué existe esta regla?*

 Ya que la forma básica (es decir, el infinitivo), _organizar_, se escribe con zeta, y que no hay ningún problema de pronunciar "ze" en _zeta_, _zepelín_, etc., lógicamente sería _organize_. Pues ¿cuál es el motivo para cambiarla?

Seguramente tiene que ver con la historia del idioma. ¿Sabe alguien por qué se evita la ortografía "ze/zi"?


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## blasita

luo.mai said:


> Todo el mundo sabe que hay una regla que nos exige sustituir la zeta por ce antes de i/e. La pregunta de Krastief es *¿por qué existe esta regla?* ¿Cuál es el motivo por ella?



Evolución del idioma, Luo. De hecho hay otro hilo sobre este caso en concreto en el que se intenta explicarlo: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1273781. Ah! Y yo no estoy tan segura de que 'todo el mundo' la conozca ...

Creo que en casi todos los idiomas, las reglas ortográficas son eso: _reglas_, y hay incluso algunas que no tienen un porqué. Los idiomas son artificiales y se adaptan con los tiempos. Esta es solo mi opinión.


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## sal62

Hola:
son tres grupos de sonidos:
1) za, ce, ci, zo y zu (_*za*_pato, _*ce*_ntro, _*ci*_elo, _*zó*_calo y _*zu*_mo)
2) ca, que, qui co y cu (_*ca*_ci_*que*_, _*quico*_, _*cú*_mulo)
3) sa, se, si, so, su (_*sa*_nto, _*se*_nsato, _*si*_lbar, _*so*_mero, _*su*_mo)
Si bien, como dijo Blasita, es una cuestión de gramática, no menos cierto es que está hecha para preservar la fónetica o pronunciación de dichos grupos.
Bueno es recordar que el animal es cebra aunque pueda aceptarse zebra (¿anglicismo?) También: cenit, cénit, zenit o el uso de palabras (gentilicios generalmente) de origen extranjero (curioso, ya que el lenguaje se fue moviendo a la vez que mutando alrededor del mundo) Zimbawe. Zepelin (es el apellido de un constructor de dirigibles) o para diferenciar significados, además de pronunciaciones: zeta ( la letra) ceta (sufijo) seta (hongo) Siempre hay excepciones pero hasta donde puedo recordar, son palabras adaptadas de otro idioma.
Espero haber sido  de ayuda.


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## grahamcracker

My English Spanish dictionary does not list a single word with the letter sequence "ze" although that could be either an omission in some cases or simply that they are spelled as "ce" in other cases. Apparently, "zebra" is an alternate spelling of "cebra" as is "cero" is of "zero".


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## James2000

This rule with ce and ci and z seems pretty clear and well established.  There are very few exceptions.  

Has the RAE ever attempted to enforce a similar rule on ge, gi, and j?


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## inib

James2000 said:


> This rule with ce and ci and z seems pretty clear and well established. There are very few exceptions.
> 
> Has the RAE ever attempted to enforce a similar rule on ge, gi, and j?


I don't think so. You just have to guess whether you're a _gilipuertas _or a _jilipuertas_! 
(EDIT: that _you _was meant to be impersonal.)


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## blasita

sal62 said:


> Si bien, como dijo Blasita, es una cuestión de gramática, no menos cierto es que está hecha para preservar la fónetica o pronunciación de dichos grupos.
> Siempre hay excepciones pero hasta donde puedo recordar, son palabras adaptadas de otro idioma.



Sí, Sal, gracias. Siento si no me expliqué bien. No mencioné la pronunciación o fonética porque creí que eso estaba claro en el enlace que di. Yo también creo que, al menos la mayoría, son palabras de otros idiomas.


grahamcracker said:


> My English Spanish dictionary does not list a single word with the letter sequence "ze" although that could be either an omission in some cases or simply that they are spelled as "ce" in other cases. Apparently, "zebra" is an alternate spelling of "cebra" as is "cero" is of "zero".



Yes, I think that many words that contain the syllable 'ze' can be spelt 'ce' nowadays (but I think that this is not true for all of them). I've never heard that _cero_ can be written _zero _(?). _Zebra_ is just an old spelling for _cebra_.


James2000 said:


> Has the RAE ever attempted to enforce a similar rule on ge, gi, and j?



Esto es lo que piensa María Moliner sobre ello: _Sería vano, por ejemplo, pensar en la posibilidad de que la Academia decretase la unificación de la representación del sonido je, ji o la supresión total en la escritura de la h muda, cuando por tanto tiempo se viene considerando como una transgresión grave el empleo no conforme al DRAE de esos signos. 

_También existen casos de duplicidad en este caso; ej. _gineta/jineta_. Por cierto, que M. Moliner también da su opinión con respecto a todo esto: piensa que se debería limpiar el DRAE de todos los casos de indecisión y duplicidad de forma escrita. Yo creo que se hará (espero que se haga, más pronto que tarde)._

_


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## grahamcracker

blasita said:


> Yes, I think that many words that contain the syllable 'ze' can be spelt 'ce' nowadays (but I think that this is not true for all of them). I've never heard that _cero_ can be written _zero _(?). _Zebra_ is just an old spelling for _cebra_.


Well, it's in my University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary. But I know that *dujiva* doesn't think much of that dictionary.
The translation for the English "zero" (Eng --> Spanish) is given as "cero" and in the Spanish --> English section there are no entries for "zero" but there is for "cero".


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## blasita

grahamcracker said:


> The translation for the English "zero" (Eng --> Spanish) is given as "cero" and in the Spanish --> English section there are no entries for "zero" but there is for "cero".


Sorry, but I'm afraid that I don't understand. If there is no entry for _*z*ero _in Spanish, why did you say the following, please?


grahamcracker said:


> Apparently, "zebra" is an alternate spelling of "cebra" as is "cero" is of "zero".


I understood here that 'zero' was given as an alternate spelling of 'cero' in Spanish.


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## Lurrezko

En cualquier caso, algunas de las palabras que contienen ze/zi no tienen una versión alternativa con ce/ci, y si la tienen no son la opción mayoritaria. Pienso en algunas que ya se han señalado: zeta, zen, zepelín, zéjel, zigzag, zigurat, enzima (no confundir con encima). También algunos nombres propios de origen griego o bíblico: Zenón, Zeus, Zebedeo. Me acuerdo también de la musa de Juan Ramón Jiménez, Zenobia Camprubí.

Saludos


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## grahamcracker

blasita said:


> Sorry, but I'm afraid that I don't understand. If there is no entry for _*z*ero _in Spanish, why did you say the following, please?
> 
> I understood here that 'zero' was given as an alternate spelling of 'cero' in Spanish.


Maybe I wasn't clear. First, *duvija* doesn't like that dictionary and she works for the University of Chicago. The *second section* of the dictionary lists the English words and supplies the Spanish translations. When I look up the English word "zero", it provides me with "cero" as the translation. When I search for "zero" in the first section (Spanish into English), it provides no entry for "zero" but it does for "cero".

When you guys tell me that "zero" and "cero" are two possible spellings of the same word, I am taking it on faith, not on the authority of my dictionary. I accept that the dictionary might be wrong because of  *duvija*. If *cero/zero* and *cebra/zebra* are all accept able, I am taking it on faith to some extent from you and the others here. I figure the dictionary may be leaving something out. Maybe it makes me wrong. But I think that the Spanish spelling "zebra" is either falling out of fashion or that the "ze" letter combination is seldom used, or there is not universal agreement.


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## blasita

grahamcracker said:


> If *cero/zero* and *cebra/zebra* are all accept able, I am taking it on faith to some extent from you and the others here. I figure the dictionary may be leaving something out. Maybe it makes me wrong.



Thanks for the clarification. But who said that _zero_ is an acceptable spelling for _cero_ (for sure it's not like that nowadays), please? I must have missed something.


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## grahamcracker

blasita said:


> Thanks for the clarification. But who said that _zero_ is an acceptable spelling for _cero_ (for sure it's not like that nowadays), please? I must have missed something.


Maybe I only thought I heard it from you guys. People were throwing out examples of "ze" words as examples right, I guys I thought I read it somewhere in this thread. I'll go back and look later when I get time. The point is that my dictionary offers nary a single example of a Spanish word beginning in "ze" but you all have offered several.


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