You can search for him by name on Facebook, or find him on Twitter as literalminded and on his blog at literalminded. Jump to Navigation. Why do we have words with silent letters? August 21, It does not represent Modern English pronunciation, and should not be expected to. Before printing was developed, English spelling was indovijuwal, like handwriting is today. It was just an attempt to represent the words the writer would be saying, as best one could.
There were lots of individual conventions, some of them pretty bizarre by modern standards. When Caxton set up his printing shop in England in , he used his own conventions to spell his language, which was Middle English, then undergoing the Great Vowel Shift on its way to Modern English.
That's why Canterbury Tales looks like English on the page, but sounds like a foreign language when someone pronounces it correctly in Middle English.
Since Caxton, there have been many new words with many new spellings introduced into the language, but English spelling has not kept pace. There are many occasionally useful partial generalizations about spelling and pronunciation, but they all have too many exceptions to be really useful.
I thought to quote this excellent overview of 'silent letters' herefrom. Our spelling system began as an attempt to reproduce speech. But because most spellings became fixed centuries ago, they no longer reflect exact pronunciations.
And in the case of English words, their spellings often have very idiosyncratic histories hidden within. Well, they once did. We know which one survived. It was once softly pronounced. But while pronunciation changed, spelling did not. Much of our modern spelling had its foundation in the Middle English period roughly to But in the late Middle English and early Modern English period roughly to , the pronunciation of vowels underwent a vast upheaval.
Melinda J. While the pronunciations of many words changed dramatically, their spellings remained largely the same. Because printing, which was introduced into England in the late s, helped retain and standardize those older spellings.
In addition, silent letters were introduced into some English words as afterthoughts to underscore their classical origins. Sometimes, a letter was erroneously added to reflect an imagined classical root. It represented the sound v as well as u, and uu was used for w. As you can see, this is a vast subject. In summary, spellings eventually settle into place and become standardized, but pronunciations are more mercurial and likely to change.
First, you have to understand that English spelling was not designed for modern English. It was designed for Middle English , a very different language, with very different sounds. The designers were the first English printers; Caxton started in , in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift marking the end of Middle English and the beginning of Modern English.
Then printing standardized spelling; before, everybody speld funettikli, in there oon fasyun. Rather like handwriting still is today. As far as "silent" letters are concerned, they remain where they were put, for whatever reason, but the sounds have changed in the words while the spelling has not.
Sometimes like the P in pneumonia it never was pronounced at all, but was just borrowed with the foreign in this case Greek spelling of the root. Others, like the K in knife and the G in singer which doesn't rhyme with finger because finger does have a G , used to be pronounced in older Englishes, but aren't any more. English speakers don't like English spelling any more than you do. It's awful and takes a lot of time out of education. But we're stuck with it; too much installed base. The answer is complicated and requires knowing the etymological and phonological history of English.
Doubt for instance comes to English ultimately through the Latin verb dubitare to hesitate , in which the "b" is not silent. But it first took a detour through the Old French word douter , which had lost the letter "b" and its sound.
Apr 24, Rohit Pandey Apr 9, These comments are very cool wonderopolis. I am a huge fan of your website and the topics are very interesting. How do you find all these facts? Apr 10, KitCat Feb 23, The English language is hard and annoying!
Feb 23, Potatoes Feb 9, You guys just are amazing. Keep up the good work! Feb 10, Rs Feb 7, I didn't even know that language could be so complex. Feb 7, Oh it gets crazy, Rs! Glad you learned something new on this Wonder! Jacob Jan 26, This is a really cool wonder. Keep up the good work :D. Jan 26, Thanks so much, Jacob! We are so glad that you enjoyed this Wonder! Emma Chen Jan 10, Yes,some of the rules of English is hard to understand.
And English is create from other language. So some words have silent letters,and in the old language of English,it is not silent. Jan 11, Ethan Sports Geek Jan 10, Can you make a wonder on sports they are life I have 4 basketball practices a week. Jan 10, Otis Jan 9, This is so interesting!
I finally understand it a little more! Ty Jan 9, InfinityCat12 Dec 15, My favourite book is DragonKeeper. Jan 12, Agreed, Derp. Arianna E. Jan 9, So, in a word like 'bite' not a real old-English example, but simpler for exposition the 'e' at the end would have meant that the word was pronounced bi. In the Germanic language, open syllables had long vowels, so 'bit' would be short 'i', 'bite' would be long.
Nowadays, the distinction between long and short vowels in English is actually more than just length because of the Great Vowel Shift. So, whereas before, 'bite' would have been something like 'beetuh', the Great Vowel Shift and the eventual elision of the final 'e' makes its modern pronunciation 'byt' — silent 'e'. Another process occurs when we borrow words from other languages.
The initial consonant sounds in these words are not used in English, at least to start words. English ends words with those clusters, though: 'hats', 'chops'.
The initial 'p' in 'psychology' and 'pterodactyl', and other words from Greek has become silent in English.
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