Silent Letters (so basically, every letter)
- Jonathan
- Apr 25, 2015
- 3 min read
Fun Fact:
Every single letter in the English alphabet is silent in at least one English word.
Don't believe me? Here's just one variation of a "silent letter list" as proof.
A - aisle, aeon, logically
B - numb, thumb, dumb, debt, crumb, subtle,
C - muscle, scent, acquire
D - wednesday,
E - giraffe, mumble, epistle
F - fifth
G - foreign, gnome
H - heir, honour
I - believe, business
J - marijuana
K - knee, knowledge, knife, knot (Why so many silent K's? We'll discuss it later.)
L - could, salmon
M - mnemonic
N - column, autumn
O - jeopardy, colonel
P - receipt, corps (not to be confused with corpse)
Q - Pontacq
R - February
S - island, aisle
T - listen, glisten, epistle
U - court, vogue, guard, building
V - savvy
W - answer, write, wrist, wrestle (Why so many wr's? We'll discuss this also.)
X - faux pas
Y - says, pepsyn
Z -redezvous
and there ya go! Of course this depends on dialect, but in a standard/midwestern english accent, these apply.
So how did we get so many silent letters?
It's mainly because we changed the pronunciations but not the spellings.
Kn-
Kn- in knife, and know used to be pronounced like they look!
Here's an example. "Knife" is derived from the Old Norse word "knífr" (pronounced: knihf-er)
Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish all held close to their roots and developed their word "kniv".
We almost had it, developing "knive" and then later (due to a consonant shift) turning to "knife".
Unfortunately, we forced this new word into English grammar rules, without considering all of its spelling.
We utilised the rule where adding "e" to the end of a word, modified the previous vowel. Thus, the 'i' in knife no longer made a "ih" sound but rather, a "eye" sound.
Somewhere along the way, we dropped the pronunciation of the "k". (most likely because we were lazy, and found it hard to say "kn-ife" every time, so we changed the prounciation but neglected to change the spelling.
Why weird spellings?
There are actually linguistic rules to explain most weird spellings!
(These rules were probably implemented after we changed the pronunciations, to explain the weird pronunciations. Sneaky english.)
"B is never pronounced when it follows M at the end of a word." Crumb, dumb, thumb,
"C is never pronounced when following S."
Scent, science, scissors
"E is not pronounced at the end of words, but modifies the vowel that comes before it.
Hope, drive, gave (instead of "hav", "driv", and "gav")
"G is not prounced when following N."
Foreign, Sign, Champagne
"H isn't pronounced when following W." Who, What, When, Where, Why
(see my post about "hwair to learn more on why question words always have "wh" // except for how)
"K is not pronounced in front of N at the beginning of a word."
Knife, knowledge, knee
"L is not often pronounced before D,M,F, or K." Calm, Half, Should, Salmon
"N is not pronounced following M at the end of a word." Autumn, hymn, solemn
"P isnt pronounced before S or N, and sometimes T." (This rule is of Greek origin, concerning aspirated ph and ps) Psychology, pneumonic
"S is not pronounced before L in some words." Aisle, isle, island
"T is often not pronounced following S." Castle, fasten, whistle, Christmas
"U is not prounced following G and before a vowel." Guess, guest, guidance, guitar
"W is not prounced at the beginning of a word, following R."
Wrong, write, wreckage
Conclusion:
So it all boils down to our weird spellings, being formed out of weird rules, lazy transitions, and misunderstood origins. Differences in preference, time and accents all play a huge role in determining how pronunciations and spellings shifts. As we've seen, spelling and pronunciation don't always align. Who knows, maybe even weirder spelling-to-pronunciations differences will become branded into our already diverse language.
Bibliography:
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