This is the genealogy of the programming language C:
C is a child of B.C was first known as C in year 1971. Then it begat csh in year 1978. Then it begat awk in year 1978. It became C (K and R) in year 1978. Then it begat C with Classes in year 1980. Then it begat Concurrent C in year 1984. Then it begat Objective-C in year 1983. Then it begat Perl in year 1987. It became ANSI C (C89) in year 1989. Then it begat Python in year 1991. It became ISO C (C90) in year 1990. Then it begat PHP in year 1995. It became ISO C (C95) in year 1996. It became ISO C (C99) in year 1999, and has not changed much since that time.
This genealogy is brought to you by the Programming Languages Genealogy Project. Please send comments to thbz.
X O ====== ||||1| ------ ||2||| ------ |3|||4 ------ |||||| ------ CEGCG Notes: 1 : C 3 : E 5 : G
C n.
1. The third letter of the English alphabet. 2. ASCII 1000011. 3. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement Unix; so called because many features derived from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of its parent, BCPL. (BCPL was in turn descended from an earlier Algol-derived language, CPL.) Before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the question by designing C++, there was a humorous debate over whether C's successor should be named `D' or `P'. C became immensely popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the dominant language in systems and microcomputer applications programming. See also languages of choice, indent style.
C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain varying according to the speaker, as "a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language".
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
'c' is a mathematical binary infix operator. (n c r) is the number of sets with r elements which can be made with n atoms. (It can also be written C(n, r), or nCr, or even nCr.)
Both n and r must be nonnegative integers, and r must be less than or equal to n. For example, (4 c 2) is the number of sets with 2 elements which can be made from 4 atoms. Say the 4 atoms are w, x, y, and z. The possible sets are: {w, x}, {w, y}, {w, z}, {x, y}, {x, z}, and {y, z}; (4 c 2) is 6. (n c r) equals (n! / ((n - r)! * r!)), which equals ((n p r) / r!).
(n c r) equals the (r + 1)th number on the (n + 1)th line of Pascal's triangle, which has many interesting properties. For example, in Eindhoven notation, (+ : (i ∈ Z) ∧ (0 ≤ i ≤ n) : n c i) = 2n.
Phssthpok says the 'c' stands for 'choose'… if you have n items available and choose r of them, the number of choices available is (n c r) and it reads as 'n choose r'.
N-wing tells me maybe the infix 'c' should be capitalized, (n C r). He also says it stands for 'combination', like p (or P) stands for 'permutation'.
One of the stranger letters of the English Alphabet. It spends its life as an orphan and a wanderer, finding work where it can.
C can be used to make the 'K' sound (voiceless velar stop), in words like 'cat', 'music' and 'account'. If it appears at the end of the word, or if it is at the beginning of the word and followed by an 'A', 'L', 'N', 'O' 'R', or 'U', it makes the 'K' sound. In names starting with Mc or Mac it also makes this sound. There are many more rules like this for various situations, such as when 'c' or 'cc' appear in the middle of a word, but if you are sufficiantly versed in English to read this node, you know them already.
C can be used to make the 'S' sound (voiceless alveolar fricative), in words like 'city' and 'accelerate'. If it appears at the beginning of a word followed by an 'E' (except in 'Celtic'), 'I', and 'Y' (except in Welsh-related words, 'cymric', 'cymrite') it makes the 'S' sound.
C can be used in the consonant cluster 'CH' (voiceless palato-alveolar affricated stop). This is the one use in which C can't be replaced. No 'C', no 'Ch'. Words like 'chill' and 'French' depend on it. (Beware 'school'; the 'H' is a non-letter in this word, having the 'C' a make 'K' sound). A few 'Cz' words also make this sound, such as 'Czechoslovakian'.
C is used next to 'K' to indicate that it follows a short vowel (beck, duck). Usually if 'K' is the last consonant sound in a word, it will either be proceeded by 'C' (to indicate a short vowel) or followed by 'E' (to indicate a long vowel). ('back', 'bake'; 'lick', 'like'; 'block', 'bloke').
I should add a link to I before E, except after C, when making the long 'A' or 'E' sound. Details and exceptions can be found at that node.
'C' can be used in for the 'Sh' sound (voiced palato-alveolar fricative, or sometimes voiceless palato-alveolar fricative). When this sound appears in the middle of a word, C can be used, followed with 'io' (e.g. 'coercion', 'suspicion', 'atrocious').
And finally, when appearing between a 'S' and an 'E' or an 'I', the 'C' is almost always silent (e.g. 'scene', 'scent'; 'science', 'scimitar'). In those rare cases where it appears at the beginning of a word followed directly by a 'T' (e.g. 'ctene', 'ctenoid', 'ctetology'), a 'N' (e.g. 'chemis', 'cnidaria', 'cnidoblast'), and in most 'Cz' words ('czar', and related words), the C is silent.
If you have any suggestions for other rules, examples, or etc. that should be added, let me know.
So far, so good... but then the Romans messed up. Initially, they used gamma for both the 'G' and 'K' sounds, but this was too confusing so they decided to split it up. Henceforth the letter C would always be read 'K', and a C with a little hook added to it -- today known as G -- would be read 'G'. Simple enough, although people ignorant of the finer points of Latin orthography still insist on ordering their Caesar salads as see-zer salads, instead of the original keh-sar. O tempora, o mores!
Then came the Dark Ages, and Latin was fragmented into dozens of dialects. In many, a phenomenon called palatalization took place before soft vowels, shifting the 'K' sound roughly like this:
Fortunately, most languages using Latin letters but without the historical baggage of Romance roots decided that this was ridiculous, and either standardized the letter to mean one sound only, or dropped it entirely. Unfortunately, standards are wonderful since there are so many to choose from, so here's a partial list of possible English readings and the languages they are used in, with a few additional notes on what various squigglies added to the letter do.
...and two sounds completely absent from English:
References
www.omniglot.org Gritchka the cunning linguist
A B C D E F G H I J
