Does dropping the cedilla from Ç change the word?

Yes, in both languages that use it most. In French the cedilla makes c sound like s before a, o and u, so CA VA would read as ka va; write ÇA VA. In Turkish, ç is a letter of its own with a ch sound, and dropping it gives a different word: çam is a pine, cam is glass.

Why does ' then c type ç instead of ć?

That's how the US-International layout works on Windows: the apostrophe is a dead key, and with c it produces ç, not the ć that Polish and Croatian need. Shift gives Ç the same way. The layout has no dead-key route to ć at all, so for those languages switch to a layout built for them, such as Polish (Programmers).

Why does Çanakkale sort after Zonguldak in my list?

A plain sort compares code points, and Ç is U+00C7, far past Z. In the Turkish alphabet Ç comes right after C, so sort with a Turkish collator: `names.sort(new Intl.Collator('tr').compare)`. French and Portuguese treat Ç as a C with an accent, so their collators file it among the C words as well.

ASCII 199

Uppercase C with cedillaBox T-junction pointing right, double vertical

ASCII 199 is Ç on Windows and ╟ in old DOS.

Ç (Capital C with Cedilla) is byte 199 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00C7. Turkish words and names start with it (Çiçek, Çelik), French needs it whenever a sentence opens with ça (Ça va ?), and Portuguese only ever has it mid-word, as in CORAÇÃO. Mangled UTF-8 turns it into Ã‡, because its bytes are C3 87 and 87 is the double dagger in Windows-1252, so GARÇON reads GARÃ‡ON. Old DOS had Ç at 128. The HTML entity is Ç.

╟ (Double Vertical, Single Right) is byte 199 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+255F. It's the left-edge tee of a double-sided box where a single divider branches off to the right. Together with ─ (196) and ╢ (182) it draws a thin separator across a double frame, ╟────╢, for splitting a title from the body. Code page 850 swapped both ends for letters, so the same separator viewed in 850 reads Ã────Â. In UTF-8, ╟ is E2 95 9F, and the HTML entity is &boxVr;.

Latin LetterBox Drawing

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 199 is Ç.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u00C7\n");   /* UTF-8: C3 87 */

    unsigned char b = 199;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 199 0xC7 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 199 is ╟ only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0xC7 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(199);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xC7 is -57.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)199;
    unsigned char u = 199;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -57 199 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u255F\n");          /* E2 95 9F */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0199 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. Alt+128, without the zero, types it too. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00C7 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+Shift+C.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type c7, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, comma, C.
Phone: Tap Shift, then long-press C and pick Ç.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 199 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. US PCs insert ╟, but PCs set to code page 850, common in Western Europe, insert Ã. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 255F and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "box drawings vertical double and right single".
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 255f, then Space.
Phone: Phone keyboards have no key for it. Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, in both languages that use it most. In French the cedilla makes c sound like s before a, o and u, so CA VA would read as ka va; write ÇA VA. In Turkish, ç is a letter of its own with a ch sound, and dropping it gives a different word: çam is a pine, cam is glass.
That's how the US-International layout works on Windows: the apostrophe is a dead key, and with c it produces ç, not the ć that Polish and Croatian need. Shift gives Ç the same way. The layout has no dead-key route to ć at all, so for those languages switch to a layout built for them, such as Polish (Programmers).
A plain sort compares code points, and Ç is U+00C7, far past Z. In the Turkish alphabet Ç comes right after C, so sort with a Turkish collator: `names.sort(new Intl.Collator('tr').compare)`. French and Portuguese treat Ç as a C with an accent, so their collators file it among the C words as well.

ASCII 199

Uppercase C with cedillaBox T-junction pointing right, double vertical

ASCII 199 is Ç on Windows and ╟ in old DOS.

Latin Letter

Box Drawing

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 199 is Ç.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u00C7\n"); /* UTF-8: C3 87 */

unsigned char b = 199; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 199 0xC7 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 199 is ╟ only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0xC7 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(199);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xC7 is -57.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)199;

unsigned char u = 199;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -57 199 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u255F\n"); /* E2 95 9F */

return 0;

}