Cedillaとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Borrowed from Spanish cedilla (literally “little zed”), c. 1600. In Spanish cedilla referred to the letter ⟨Ç⟩, which had evolved from ⟨Ꝣ⟩, a Visigothic form of the letter Z (called a Z with copete); hence the name. The lower part of ⟨Ç⟩ (which came to be reinterpreted as a diacritical mark under a C) is the remnant of the original Z, after it gradually reduced in size; whereas the upper part was originally just an ornamentation over the Z (which increased in size until it resembled letter C, and finally came to be identified with this letter).

発音

• IPA: /səˈdɪlə/, enPR: sə-dĭʹlə
• 韻: -ɪlə

名詞

cedilla (plural cedillas or cedillae)

1. (orthography) A diacritical mark ⟨¸⟩ placed beneath a letter to modify its pronunciation, used in the orthographies of many languages, such as under c in Catalan, French and Portuguese to indicate /s/ rather than /k/ (e.g. Catalan força, French menaçant, Portuguese almoço) and in other languages to modify the pronunciation of the letter c (e.g. from /d͡ʒ/ to /t͡ʃ/ in Turkish) or of other letters.

   Synonyms: (dated) cedille, cédille

   • 2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, in The Guardian‎, archived from the original on 4 April 2025:

     California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸).

2. (by extension, palaeography) Synonym of cauda
   • 1992, Margaret Gibson, T.A Heslop, Richard Pfaff, The Eadwine Psalter : text, image and monastic culture in twelfth-century Canterbury‎, Pennsylvania State University Press, page 15:

     The scribal discipline indicated by this sort of consistency extends to such details as the employment of different forms of cedilla appended to the letter e to distinguish between diphthong ae and diphthong oe.

   • 2003, Carrie E. Beneš, “The Appearance and Spread of the E-Cedilla in Latin Bookhands”, in Manuscripta, volumes 43–44, page 2:

     Teresa Webber and Malcolm Parkes have both remarked on its use by the Canterbury scribe Eadmer in the twelfth century, who went so far as to distinguish cedillae indicating oe from cedillae indicating ae.

   • 2003, Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century‎, Cambridge University Press, page 52:

     The following ligatures are the principal ones to be encountred in early Caroligian script:
     (a) ae, consisting of Carolingian e to which a Cursive a in the shape of u or cc or a simple hook is suspended; the ‘cedilla’ in this e caudata would soon be no longer understood as representing the letter a and would take various forms, before disappearing in the course of the twelfth century;
     [...].

使用する際の注意点

Sometimes retained in words which have been adopted into English, specifically from French, such as facade / façade.

派生語

参考

• ç
• ogonek

アナグラム

• cleidal