Is there a "C" in the Greek alphabet and what is it?

Question

I have a stubborn friend whose brother said there was and I found the greek alphabet which didn't have "C" and though I'm pretty sure I'm right I want some backup

Answer 1

Perhaps you're talking about slightly different things. Greek has NEVER had a letter that behaves as OUR letter C behaves, but actually, but that's because of changes in English and other languages (esp. the Romance languages), not Greek.

The letter that we call "C" was part of the earliest Latin alphabet. But originally it was used for the sound /g/. In fact, it was just a variant of the same originally Phoenician letter ("gimmel") from which the Greek alphabet derived its letter "gamma" -- Γ.

Only later did the Romans start also using it for the "k" sound (at which point they downplayed the use of "K"). The "soft" sound (like /s/, as in "cee") is MUCH later still -- it only came with the growth of the "Vulgar Latin" dialects that turned into the Romance languages (Italian, Spanish, French...). Old English used to pronounce this letter with the hard-c sound (that is, same as K), but Middle English added the soft sound from French.

(G --which you can even see is just slightly modified form of "C"-- was an Old Latin invention to distinguish the /g/ sound from the /k/ sound.)

Some clues to the original relationship of these letters --

1) Note the position of these letters in their respective alphabets -- Semitic (Phoenician, Hebrew, etc) = aleph, beth, gimmel, dalet; Greek = alpha, beta, gamma, delta; Latin = A, B, C [pronounced "gay"], D (Latin used the same initial sound for the letter names, but stopped imitating the Semitic letter-names)

2) Take the original form of the Greek "gimmel" and turn it counterclockwise 45 degrees. It should look a lot like "C" -- and in fact, that is the original form of the letter in the Latin alphabet (and earlier Etruscan). You can see this by comparing the charts in these articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumae_alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet\

On the history of the letter C (and G) in Latin, etc, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Latin_alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G

As for the "C" of the Cyrillic alphabets. It is confusing since this letter makes the "s" sound the Romance languages (and English) eventually ended up with for some uses of OUR letter "C". But, as a matter of fact, the Cyrillic letter -- is not at all related to our Latin C. It is an Eastern Greek variation of the "sigma" (the S-sound), called the "lunate sigma".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma

Answer 2

Back in the day, in Acient Greek Times, there were a few characters that stood for s as in sand. Two of them were C and Σ. They were in competion and slowly Σ gained ground and C was abandoned. Nowadays, it is used to create an arachaic feel. It is always used in religious paintings.

On the other hand, the Russian alphabet, aka the Cyrillic Alphabet, is based on the Greek alphabet which has C for our S.

Answer 3

The greek alphabet is quite different from the english one, which is the same with the german or the french. And there is no C.

Answer 4

In Greek alphabet there is no letter "C".
In greek we use "Κ" for "C" pronounced like CAT and "Σ" for "C" pronounced like CELL

Answer 5

In the Greek alphabet there is no C. There is one S sound (sigma), in Greek Σ / σ / ς (σίγμα), and one K sound (kappa), in Greek Κ / κ (κάππα).
The whole alphabet is like this: Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω / α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω

Answer 6

Well, the alphabet starts, "alpha, beta, kappa, delta, epsilon."