Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/862

* c CThe third letter in the Latin, as in all alphabets, like the Romance and English, that are derived from it. In position the letter c corre- sponds to the Greek gamma (F) from which its form is actually de- rived throujjh curvature or rounding. Its shape is ultimately traceable, it is thought, to a hiero- glyijhic pictograph for a throne. See Alphabet. Phonetic Chabacter. In sound the Latin c originally had the same force as the Greek gamma (r) • from which it is adapted, and this old. value is seen in such Latin abbreviations of proper names as C. for Gaius, Cn. for Gnieus; but in Latin C later began to take on the force and function of K, which was falling into dis- use, and a new letter tf (a modification of C) was introduced to represent that voiced guttural (/-sound. (See G. ) The 7;-sound of c continued in Latin down to at least the Eighth Century of the Christian Era; and that is also its power in the Anglo-Saxon or Old English, when 'king' is written cyniiHi, and 'queen' eicen, as there was no q during that period. The later differ- entiation or changes of the sound of c from the old stop or /.-sound in come to the hissing or sibilant .s-sound in cetaceous, with similar modi- fications, is largely due to the influence of a following i, e. These front vowels being farther forward in the mouth than a, o, u, tend to change the character of the checked sound into a split or hiss. As examples of such sibilant de- velopments, compare the pronunciation of Latin Cicero (Kikero). Italian Chichero. English Sisero, or again the common English pronuncia- tion of vici, 'I conquered' ('visi' instead of ■weke'), in veni, vidi, vici. Of like character is such an interchange as I^atin centum, 'hundred;' Sanskrit, sata. E.xamples of palatalization or splitting of c to ch. before i, e are especially common from Anglo-Saxon into modern English, through the Southern Dialect — e.g. AS. cild {kild), Eng. child; AS. ceorl, Eng. churl; AS. Kccati, Eng. seek and beseech; or, again Lat. caput, 'head;' Fr. chef, Eng. chief; Lat. canto, Eng. chant. The phonetic laws governing such interchanges as c with g, h in tlic Indo-Germanic languages may be better understood by pro- nouncing in succession the syllables ac, ca (with perfect closure), ag, ya (with the same closure, but voiced), and <i/i, ha (with imperfect clo- sure) ; hence, such alternates as Lat. ager, 'field,' Eng. acre; Lat. due (lead, draw), Eng. tug ; Lat. canis, 'dog,' Gk. kvv-, kun-; AS. hun-cL, •hound.' (See Phonetic Laws.) In usage, as a letter compared with /,-, the Germanic alpha- bets, which are under obligation to the Greek as well as to the Latin, adopted /,-, from the Greek kappa, to represent the guttiral sound. For this reason, c in German and Swedish, etc., hardly occurs outside of words of Romance ori- gin. In Modern English c is practically su- perfluous, as far as sound-representation is necessarily concerned ; 'the letter k might easily take its place in recording the stop-sound of c before a, o, u, and the letter s might readily be substituted for the hissing sound of c be- fore e, {. As ABBRE^^ATIOX. In music C is the first tone, or keynote of the diatonic scale of C major. C = 100; C. = Centigrade (thermometer scale) ; B.C. = before Christ; e. = cent, centime, etc.; and it is used in some other familiar abbrevia- tions. CAABA, kifba or ka'a-ba. See Kaaba. CAAING (ka'ing) WHALE (Scotch ca, caa, to drive), or Blackfish. A large, porpoiselike cetacean, of the Killer family ( Delphinidie) and genus Globiocephalus, principally characterized by its globose head. Thsy go in large schools, crowding after a leader; and as they yield a fair amount of oil similar (but inferior) to sperm- oil, and their flesh i,s savory, they are inci- dentally an object of the sea-chase. The caaing whale proper {Globiocephalus melas) is 20 feet long, black, with a white aljdominal area, has very long and narrow pectoral fins, and inhabits the colder parts of the Atlantic, appearing on our coast southward to New York, south of which it is replaced by a short-finned black spe- cies {Globiocephalus brachypterus). The Pacific has a widespread species {Globiocephalus Seam- moni), wholly black, and much pursued by whalemen. The food of all is mainly squids, but fish arc also eaten. See Whale. CAAMA, k:i'm!, or Kaama. (1) A small South African fox or fennec {Fennecus eaama). now rare, whose fur is valuable. It has the habits of a fennec (q.v.), and lives largely on the eggs and yomig of ostriches and other ground-building birds. It is also called 'asse.' (2) The Bubalis cama. See Hartbeest. CAAZAPA, ka'a-sa'pil. A town of the Re- public of Paraguay, situated 2,5 miles south of Villa Rica with which it is connected by rail- 00