C with Cedilla (ç Ç): Soft s or ch, and How ć and č Differ
Ç, the c with cedilla, is a c with a small hook under it. French, Portuguese and Catalan read it as s before a, o or u, as in garçon and força. Turkish and Albanian read it as ch. Copy ç or Ç below. On a Mac press Option+C; on Windows type Alt+0231. The ć and č are different letters.
How do you type ç on a keyboard or phone?
On a Mac, ç is Option+C; on Windows it is Alt+0231. Each row below gives the documented method for one device or app, phones included; the vendor help pages they come from are linked under the table.
| Device or app | Keys |
|---|---|
| Mac | Option+C How to type accents on a Mac |
| Windows | Alt+0231 How to type accents on Windows |
| Windows, US-International | AltGr+, |
| iPhone, iPad | Touch and hold C, then slide to ç |
| Android | Touch and hold C, then slide to ç |
| Chromebook | Switch to the US International keyboard, then Shift+AltGr+5, then C How to type accents on a Chromebook |
| Microsoft Word | Ctrl+,, then C How to type accents in Word |
| Google Docs | Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, then search "latin small letter c with cedilla" How to type accents in Google Docs |
Sources:Mac (Apple) (opens in a new tab)Windows (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Windows, US-International (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)iPhone, iPad (Apple) (opens in a new tab)Android (Google) (opens in a new tab)Chromebook (Google) (opens in a new tab)Microsoft Word (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Google Docs (Google) (opens in a new tab)
- ç c with cedilla · used in 11 languages
- Ç capital c with cedilla · used in 11 languages
- ć c with acute · used in 6 languages
- Ć capital c with acute · used in 6 languages
- č c with caron · used in 9 languages
- Č capital c with caron · used in 9 languages
What are the Alt codes for c with cedilla?
Hold Alt and type the digits on the number pad with Num Lock on. The top row of digits does not work, and laptops without a number pad need the methods above.
| Letter | Alt code |
|---|---|
| ç | Alt+0231 |
| Ç | Alt+0199 |
ć Ć č Č have no Alt code: Windows cannot type them that way.
Why does French put a cedilla under c before a, o and u?
To give the c an s sound before those vowels. Larousse (opens in a new tab) defines the cédille as the sign set under c before a, o or u. It gives the c the sound [s], as in façade, leçon and reçu. Before e and i, a plain c already says s. So the cedilla in French never stands before those two letters.
The mark comes and goes inside one family of words. Wiktionary's entry for ç (opens in a new tab) says it turns up mostly in inflected and derived forms: commencer keeps a plain c, while commençons needs the hook.
| Word | Letter after the c | Written with | Wiktionary IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| commencer, to begin | e | c | /kɔ.mɑ̃.se/ |
| commençons, we begin | o | ç | /kɔ.mɑ̃.sɔ̃/ |
| recevoir, to receive | e | c | /ʁə.sə.vwaʁ/ |
| reçu, receipt | u | ç | /ʁəsy/ |
| français, from France | a | ç | /fʁɑ̃.sɛ/ |
The IPA comes from Wiktionary's entries for commencer (opens in a new tab), commençons (opens in a new tab), recevoir (opens in a new tab) and français (opens in a new tab). The reçu line is WikiPron's reading in AccentPad's facts. In every row the sound stays /s/. Only the spelling moves.
A few words carry the cedilla with no plain-c relative. Wiktionary names façon, way or fashion, as one of the fairly rare exceptions. In AccentPad's subtitle data, ça is the most frequent French word with ç, ahead of façon and garçon (opens in a new tab), boy.
How does the cedilla shape the Portuguese -ção ending?
The Portuguese -ção ending is the match for English -tion. Wiktionary's entry for -ção (opens in a new tab) traces it to Latin -tiōnem and gives the plural as -ções. The ending is said /ˈsɐ̃w̃/ and carries the stress. The ç is what keeps that s. Portuguese c says /k/ before a, o and u and /s/ before e and i, according to Wiktionary's entry for c (opens in a new tab). An ending spelled with a plain c before ã would be read with k.
The suffix turns a verb into a noun. These pairs are the examples in the same entry:
| Verb | Meaning | Noun with -ção | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| comercializar | to commercialize | comercialização | commercialization |
| compor | to compose | composição | composition |
| diluir | to dilute | diluição | dilution |
| absolver | to acquit | absolvição | acquittal |
| conter | to restrain | contenção | restrainment |
Not every word ending in -ção has the suffix. Coração (opens in a new tab), heart, ranks among the most common Portuguese ç words in AccentPad's facts. Wiktionary derives it from Vulgar Latin *corāceōnem, built on cor. The ending only looks the same.
Wiktionary's ç entry adds two Portuguese rules. Ç is a variant of c, not a separate letter. And ç and ss can spell one sound: maça and massa are both /ˈmasa/.
Which languages read ç as ch instead of s?
Turkish, Azerbaijani and Albanian read the c with cedilla as ch, /t͡ʃ/, and count it as a letter of its own. Wiktionary's ç entry (opens in a new tab) lists Ç straight after C in each of these alphabets. French, Portuguese and Catalan say /s/ and treat ç as a c with a mark. One hook, two unrelated sounds.
| Language | Where ç stands | Sound, per Wiktionary | A word with ç |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | a c with a mark, sorted as c | /s/ | garçon, boy: /ɡaʁsɔ̃/ |
| Portuguese | a c with a mark, never first in a word | /s/ | força, strength: /ˈfoɾ.sɐ/ |
| Catalan | ce trencada, not a separate letter | /s/ | dolç, sweet: [ˈdols] |
| Turkish | a letter, right after c | /t͡ʃ/ | çay, tea: /ˈt͡ʃaj/ |
| Azerbaijani | a letter, right after c | [t͡ʃʰ] | saç, hair: [sɑt͡ʃ] |
| Albanian | a letter, right after c | /t͡ʃ/ | çaj, tea: /t͡ʃaj/ |
The words come from Wiktionary's entries for força (opens in a new tab), dolç (opens in a new tab), çay (opens in a new tab), saç (opens in a new tab) and çaj (opens in a new tab). Garçon is WikiPron's reading in the facts.
Catalan stretches its own rule. Its name for the letter, ce trencada (opens in a new tab), means broken c, and the letter entry puts it before a, o or u. Yet dolç ends in ç, and Wiktionary gives it an s at the end.
Turkish also has a plain c with a sound of its own, /d͡ʒ/. So c and ç are two letters there, and the cedilla is never optional.
How are ç, ć and č different?
Ç, ć and č are three letters built on c with three different marks: a cedilla below, an acute above and a caron above. UnicodeData.txt (opens in a new tab) breaks each one into a plain c and its own combining mark. A search for c with accent can mean any of them, so the table sets them side by side.
| ç | ć | č | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark | cedilla, below the c | acute, above | caron or háček, above |
| Code point | U+00E7 | U+0107 | U+010D |
| Breaks down into | c + U+0327 | c + U+0301 | c + U+030C |
| Alphabets in Unicode CLDR | French, Portuguese, Catalan, Turkish, Albanian, Azerbaijani, among others | Polish, Croatian, Bosnian, both Sorbian languages, among others | Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Latvian, Lithuanian, among others |
| Sound, per Wiktionary | /s/ or /t͡ʃ/, by language | /t͡ɕ/, a soft ch | /t͡ʃ/, the ch of English |
| A city in GeoNames | Çorum, Türkiye | Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina | Čačak, Serbia |
| Windows Alt code | Alt+0231 | none | none |
| On a Mac | Option+C | press and hold C | press and hold C |
The sound row comes from Wiktionary's entries for ć (opens in a new tab) and č (opens in a new tab). The note on English ch comes from its entry for háček (opens in a new tab), which says English writes that /t͡ʃ/ as ch or tch.
The sounds cross the table. Turkish ç and Czech č spell the same /t͡ʃ/, and the word for tea shows it. Wiktionary even says Serbo-Croatian čaj (opens in a new tab) was borrowed from Ottoman Turkish çay. One sound took a cedilla in one alphabet and a caron in another.
| Language | Tea | Wiktionary IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Turkish | çay | /ˈt͡ʃaj/ |
| Albanian | çaj | /t͡ʃaj/ |
| Czech | čaj | [ˈt͡ʃaj] |
| Slovak | čaj | /t͡ʃaj/ |
| Serbo-Croatian | čaj | /t͡ʃâj/ |
Why do Croatian and Serbian need both ć and č?
Because they write two different sounds. Wiktionary gives Serbo-Croatian č as /t͡ʃ/ and ć as /t͡ɕ/, a postalveolar and an alveolo-palatal ch. The Latin alphabet runs c, č, ć, d. The Cyrillic one writes the same pair as ч and ћ. Čaj (opens in a new tab), tea, is /t͡ʃâj/; kuća (opens in a new tab), house, is /kût͡ɕa/.
The neighbours split the pair. In the CLDR alphabets behind AccentPad's facts, Polish has ć and no č. Czech and Slovak have č and no ć. Slovenian has č as a full letter and uses ć mainly in loanwords from Serbo-Croatian, Wiktionary notes. Lower Sorbian has both, but writes ć only after s, š, ś, z, ž or ź.
Sorting follows the alphabet. We sorted three cities from the facts, Çorum, Ćuprija and Čačak, with Cuenca, Czersk and Dakar as plain controls. The sort ran on 2026-10-09 in Node.js v26 with ICU 78.3 and CLDR 48 data. The rules behind it are in the CLDR charts for Turkish (opens in a new tab), Croatian (opens in a new tab), Polish (opens in a new tab) and Czech (opens in a new tab).
| Sorting rules | Result, first to last |
|---|---|
| Croatian, Slovenian | Çorum, Cuenca, Czersk, Čačak, Ćuprija, Dakar |
| Polish | Čačak, Çorum, Cuenca, Czersk, Ćuprija, Dakar |
| Czech, Lithuanian, Latvian | Çorum, Cuenca, Ćuprija, Czersk, Čačak, Dakar |
| Turkish, Azerbaijani, Albanian | Čačak, Cuenca, Ćuprija, Czersk, Çorum, Dakar |
| French, Portuguese, Catalan, English | Čačak, Çorum, Cuenca, Ćuprija, Czersk, Dakar |
| Raw code point order | Cuenca, Czersk, Dakar, Çorum, Ćuprija, Čačak |
Each set of rules files its own letters after every plain c, even Czersk. It treats the others as a c with a mark. Raw code point order puts all three after Dakar, which none of the language rules above does.
What happens to a word when the cedilla is left off?
Sometimes it becomes another word. Portuguese, Catalan and Turkish read a plain c with another sound, so a dropped hook can turn strength into gallows, or pine into glass.
The pairs come from Wiktionary's entries for força (opens in a new tab), forca (opens in a new tab), çam (opens in a new tab), cam (opens in a new tab), saç (opens in a new tab) and sac (opens in a new tab).
| Language | With ç | Meaning | Without | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portuguese | força, /ˈfoɾ.sɐ/ | strength | forca, /ˈfoɾ.kɐ/ | gallows |
| Catalan | força, [ˈfɔr.sə] | force | forca, [ˈfor.kə] | pitchfork, gallows |
| Turkish | çam, /t͡ʃɑm/ | pine | cam, /ˈd͡ʒam/ | glass |
| Turkish | saç, /sat͡ʃ/ | hair | sac, /sad͡ʒ/ | sheet metal |
Search software decides whether the missing hook matters. We ran the same Node.js check in search mode. It ignores case, and it ignores accents where a language treats them as accents.
| Search for | Text | Turkish rules | Croatian rules | French, Portuguese or English rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| corum | Çorum | not found | found | found |
| cam | çam | not found | found | found |
| forca | força | not found | found | found |
| cacak | Čačak | found | not found | found |
| Bihač | Bihać | found | not found | found |
Under Turkish rules, a search typed without the cedilla misses the city of Çorum. Under Croatian rules, Bihać and Bihač stay apart. Portuguese rules find força for forca, so strength and gallows share one search key. Keep the mark in stored text, and let search be the place that forgives it.
How do you pronounce ç, ć or č?
WikiPron transcribes these letters in common words from Wiktionary: in French, façon is /fasɔ̃/. The table gives one example word per letter and language.
| Letter | Language | Example | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| ç | French | façon | /fasɔ̃/ |
| ç | Portuguese | cabeça | /kabesa/ |
The WikiPron lists used here have no example word for ć and č.
Which common words use ç, ć or č?
FrequencyWords counts the words used in film and TV subtitles, and its lists give these as the most frequent words with each letter in each language, most common first.
- ç
- French:
- ça
- façon
- garçon
- reçu
- garçons
- français
- leçon
- commençons
Portuguese:- cabeça
- começar
- faço
- coração
- segurança
- crianças
- força
- faça
No list here has a common word with ć and č.
Which languages use ç, ć or č?
Between them, ç, ć and č are part of the standard alphabet of 22 languages in the Unicode CLDR. Each letter's languages:
- ç
- 11 languages:
- Albanian
- Azerbaijani
- Basque
- Catalan
- French
- Kurdish
- Ligurian
- Occitan
- Portuguese
- Turkish
- Turkmen
- ć
- 6 languages:
- Bosnian
- Croatian
- Lower Sorbian
- Polish
- Silesian
- Upper Sorbian
- č
- 9 languages:
- Bosnian
- Croatian
- Czech
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Lower Sorbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Upper Sorbian
Which names and places are spelled with ç, ć or č?
Given names come from Wikidata, the most widely covered first by the number of Wikipedia editions about them, and places come from the GeoNames list of cities, largest population first, kept only where an official language of the country writes the letter.
- ç
- Given names:
- François
- Françoise
- Çağla
- Tuğçe
- Çetin
- Çiğdem
- Gökçe
- Güvenç
- Jean-François
- Marie-Françoise
- François-Xavier
- Llorenç
Places:- Nova Iguaçu (Brazil)
- Çankaya (Türkiye)
- Küçükçekmece (Türkiye)
- Bahçelievler (Türkiye)
- Camaçari (Brazil)
- Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil)
- São Gonçalo (Brazil)
- Çorum (Türkiye)
- ć
Given names: Srećko
Places: Bihać (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Zamość (Poland), Nikšić (Montenegro), Ćuprija (Serbia), Zaprešić (Croatia)
- č
- Given names:
- Srečko
- Mečislovas
- Čedomir
- Frančišek
- Ričardas
- Časlav
- Čeněk
- Česlovas
Places:- Čačak (Serbia)
- České Budějovice (Czechia)
- Pančevo (Serbia)
- Trenčín (Slovakia)
- Zaječar (Serbia)
- Děčín (Czechia)
- Brčko (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
- Česká Lípa (Czechia)
How to type c with cedilla, step by step
Step 1: Mac: Option+C, a single chord
Hold Option and press C, and ç appears with no second key. Shift+Option+C gives Ç. For ć or č, press and hold C and choose the letter from the menu.
Step 2: Windows: Alt+0231 for ç, Alt+0199 for Ç
Switch Num Lock on, hold Alt, type the digits on the number pad and release Alt. ć and č have no Alt code: press Win+. and look under Symbols.
Step 3: Word: Ctrl+, then C
Press Ctrl+, (Ctrl and the comma key), let go, then press C for ç or Shift+C for Ç. For č, type 010d and press Alt+X; for ć, type 0107 and press Alt+X.
Step 4: Chromebook: Shift+AltGr+5, then C
With the US International keyboard switched on, press Shift+AltGr+5, then C for ç. Shift+C after the same keys gives Ç.
Step 5: iPhone or Android: hold the C key
Touch and hold C until the variants appear, slide to ç, ć or č and lift your finger. Turn on Shift first for a capital.
Step 6: Google Docs: search the Unicode name
Open Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, and search for latin small letter c with cedilla. The same search with caron or acute finds č and ć.
Which letters are related to c with cedilla?
These letter pages share an accent mark or a language with ç Ç ć Ć č Č, the most shared languages first.
Whole alphabets with every letter in order, including ć, č and ç:
- Croatian alphabet
- Czech alphabet
- French alphabet
- Latvian alphabet
- Lithuanian alphabet
- Polish alphabet
- Portuguese alphabet
- Slovak alphabet
- Turkish alphabet
Every letter with the same mark, on one page, for ć, č and ç: Accent aigu, Caron, Cedilla.
What is the Unicode code for ç?
ç is U+00E7, LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA, added in Unicode 1.1 in 1993. In UTF-8 it is stored as the bytes C3 A7, and the table gives every escape a developer needs.
| Code point | U+00E7 |
|---|---|
| Name | LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA |
| Added in | Unicode 1.1 (1993) |
| UTF-8 bytes | C3 A7 |
| HTML | ç ç ç |
| CSS | \00E7 |
| JavaScript | \u00E7 |
| Python | \u00e7 |
| URL | %C3%A7 |
If a page shows ç instead of ç, its UTF-8 bytes are being read as Windows-1252. Serve the page as UTF-8 (<meta charset="utf-8">) to fix it.
What other c letters have accents besides ç?
Every c with an accent mark on AccentPad, lowercase then capitals. Tap one to copy it:
Need a letter other than ç?
Frequently asked questions about c with cedilla
What is the c with a cedilla called in French, Portuguese and Catalan?
French calls it c cédille and Portuguese c cedilha. Catalan names it ce trencada, the broken c, and Basque ze hautsi. Wiktionary's English gloss is plain c cedilla. Unicode's name is LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA. The word cedilla itself comes from Spanish and means little z, Larousse notes.
Does a capital Ç keep its cedilla in French?
Yes. The Académie française says an accent on a capital letter has full spelling value. The same goes for the tréma and the cedilla, it adds. So a heading reads ÇA, not CA. On a Mac, Shift+Option+C types Ç; on Windows, Alt+0199.
Is a c with a hacek the same letter as a c with a caron?
Yes. Háček, Czech for little hook, is the Czech name of the caron, the small v above the letter. So c with hacek and c with caron both mean č, U+010D, with Č as the capital. Neither is ç, whose mark hangs below the c.
Can a Portuguese word start with ç?
No. Wiktionary's usage note says ç never occurs at the start of a Portuguese word. It sits inside a word, before a, o or u. Cabeça, faço and segurança are among the most frequent Portuguese ç words in AccentPad's subtitle data.