Why is the pronunciation of c different from the Pacific Ocean?

So in French, the word became pacifique, pronounced pah-see-feek. From French, the word came into English in the 1500s. The first C kept its soft S sound. The English a that time wanted no part of the French QUE spelling and changed it back to a C, with a hard K sound.

Why does the C in Ocean say sh?

The word entered Old French as occean (oh-kee-ahn), which was transitioning to oh-see-ahn at time it was absorbed by English in the 1200s. Like in French, English also has the tendency to lose hard C sounds in front of certain vowels. That happened to ocean, but in this case the hard C changed to a SH.

Why is C pronounced as S?

2 Answers. TLDR: Because Latin mostly first came to English through French, we picked up the French habit of pronouncing most Latin-derived words with ⟨ce⟩ and ⟨ci⟩ using /s/ or sometimes /ʃ/, but never /k/. We also got into the habit of not changing spellings once established.

Does C make a sh sound?

2 Answers. In general, English words spelled with “ci”, “ti” or “si” before a vowel letter are often pronounced with a “sh” sound /ʃ/ rather than a “s” sound /s/.

Can C be pronounced as Z?

By googling I found an old book which counts these words as in which letter C sounds like Z: suffice, discern, sacrifice. But checking it in Cambridge dictionary raises that it is not true or not updated and those words pronounce as C rather than Z.

What are some examples of Heteronyms?

Heteronyms are words that are spelled identically but have different meanings when pronounced differently. For example: Lead, pronounced LEED, means to guide. However, lead, pronounced LED, means a metallic element.

Why does C have two sounds?

English has both letters because it borrowed the Latin alphabet, and Latin had both letters. However, it pronounced them exactly the same way: with the k-sound. (This changed in Latin’s descendants, the Romance languages, but that was later.)