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Is it true that words that begin with ka, or ku are not originally English. so the letter 'c' in words beginning with 'ca' or 'cu' is pronounced 'k'?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Omar AhmedIs it true that words that begin with ka, or ku are not originally English. so the letter 'c' in words beginning with 'ca' or 'cu' is pronounced 'k'?

That doesn't sound right to me. The existence of "kava" and "kuru" can have no effect on our pronunciation of "cat" or "cup". Also, the switch from Greek "k" to Latin "c" happened a long time ago, before written English borrowed the Latin alphabet. You are right about one thing. I did a wildcard search in Onelook for "ka*" and "ku*", and I saw not a single native English word.

CalifJim · Answer

Omar AhmedIs it true that words that begin with ka, or ku are not originally English

That may be true, as anonymous has found. I'm surprised 'ko' is not included.

Omar Ahmedso the letter 'c' in words beginning with 'ca' or 'cu' is pronounced 'k'?

In fact, that pronunciation is used, but I'll bet that the logical connection implied by the initial "so" is wrong. It doesn't seem possible that English developed in such an organized way. The pronunciation of initial 'c' before 'a' or 'u' owes nothing to the fact that borrowed words have 'k' instead of 'c' in those positions.

There must have been plenty of French words that entered English long ago that began with 'ca' or 'cu', and these borrowings were not changed to 'ka' or 'ku' just because they were not originally English.

And I have no idea what to say about the fact that some women spell their name "Catherine" while others spell it "Katherine", and yet it's the same name pronounced the same way.

CJ

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