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What is the capital of Tunisia?

L’origine du c cédille

Je suis loin d’être spécialiste, mais je pense que les liens ci-dessous (questions sur FSE) peuvent donner des indications et constituent un bon point de départ (voir aussi les références mentionnées dans les réponses) :

Regarding usage and history of special character/symbols/diacritics in French?

What exactly do the French diacritics denote? And can they be implied/expelled?

Mon Littré indique :

Espagn. cedilla ; ital. zediglia ; diminutif de zêta, nom du z en grec
; la cédille a été ainsi nommée, parce que, d’ordinaire, pour donner
au c le son de l’s, on écrivait cz : leczon pour leçon.

La Grammaire méthodique du français en parle aussi :

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Another source I found A Reference Grammar of French

The term “cedilla” comes from the diminutive of the Spanish zeta/zeda
(z), which disappeared from use in the eighteenth century. The cedilla
appears like an upside-down c, and is placed beneath the consonant c
when it is followed by an a, o or u. This indicates that the c is to
be pronounced as an ss, and not like a k: le franc¸ais, nous
commençons, j’ai rec¸u. The cedilla is also used with capitals.

Of course wiki offers a plethora of information. Here is the French page. Here is an interesting thread.
Another link that discuss cedilla in general.

http://diacritics.typo.cz/index.php?id=8

The shape of the cedilla origins in the lower part of cursive
lowercase z, and its name comes from old Spanish name of the
character. In Spanish, it is not used since the reform of orthography
in the 18th century, when it was replaced by the letter z. Most
commonly, cedilla appears below the letter c (ç) in Western Roman
languages where it represents the “s” sound where the “c” would
represent the “k” sound. In Turkish, it is also used with s (ş).

In Cameroon, languages using the General Alphabet for Cameroon
Languages (GACL) have the cedilla under vowels to indicate
nasalization, like the ogonek is used in some European or American
languages. GACL uses a wide range of letters for vowels : basic Latin
vowels (a̧ ȩ i̧ o̧ u̧), schwa (ə̧), Latin epsilon or open E (ɛ̧), open
O (ɔ̧) and I with stroke (ɨ̧).


NB (citant @Eau qui dort)

la raison pour laquelle l’espagnol utilisait un z (et pas un s) pour marquer le son /s/ est que cette langue faisait à l’époque une distinction entre un /s/ avancé touchant presque les dents (comme /s/ en français moderne) épelé c, z ou ç, et un /s/ rétracté prononcé près des alvéoles (le /s/ de l’espagnol moderne) épelé /s/ ou /ss/. Le français ayant déjà fusionné les deux phonèmes, il a emprunté la cédille pour représenter son /s/ avancé.

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?