For people around the world, English is now becoming one of the most common languages. Every language has its nuances and variants that challenge the learner of a new tongue. English has silent letters in the spelling of many words. You can just about go through the entire 26 letter alphabet and find English making use of a letter that has no perceptible role in the word’s pronunciation. For every rule explaining how a letter is pronounced it seems there are exceptions where the directive does not apply.
The main reason English has so many silent letters is that many words are borrowed. Words borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, and German often retain all or part of their original spelling, even when pronunciation has changed over time.
I give credit to the Merriam-Webster website for the following information.
Why is there an ‘a’ in bread? Since the ‘a’ does nothing, you could spell it bred. However, bred is the past tense of breed, so that probably won’t work. The same issue affects lead, the metallic element. Also, consider head, dead, dread, thread, and spread. And for some reason ‘a’ makes an appearance in aisle and aesthetic.
‘C’ cedes all power to ‘s’ in science, scent, and scissors. And ‘c’ does not do much of anything in acquire, indict, and muscle. What use is there for ‘c’ in yacht, fascinate, obscene, and disciple.
‘D’ shirks its auditory duties in handkerchief and handsome. The ‘d’ in Wednesday is only there from the derivative of Oden’s Day, the old Norse god. Even though some people pronounce the ‘d’ in grandson, grandmother, sandwich, edge, and ledger, it is supposed to be silent in English.
‘G’ has no business in phlegm, as far as the modern reader is concerned. Also, think of all those ‘gn-words’ like gnarl, gnash, gnat, gnaw, gnostic, and gnu. What about a ‘g’ in high, though, and through.
Beginning spellers may have a problem with the ‘k’ in knee, knife, knight, knit, knob, knock, knot, know, and knuckle.
The letter ‘l’ is especially troublesome in English pronunciation. The most notorious example can be found in the word colonel, which sounds identical to kernel (I’m not sure where the ‘r’ sound comes from). ‘L’ is also silent in could, should, and would. Also, think of calf and half, chalk, talk and walk, calm, palm and psalm.
‘T’ is not audible in castle, listen, whistle, and ballet. Think of how you pronounce asthma. How often do people mispronounce ‘often,’ sounding the ‘t’?
‘W’ might as well disappear in wrack, wrangle, wrap, wreath, wren, wrench, wrestle, wrinkle, wrist, write, and wrong. Why is there a ‘w’ in answer, sword, and two.
Many printers who operated early printing presses in England came from the Netherlands and Germany, and because they had control over a language that was, at the time, still not standardized, they added extra letters to have them resemble words from their home countries.
The other day at the restaurant I was in receipt of a receipt. Silent letters, in any language, can cause confusion and mispronunciations. In the Anglo-French spoken by the Norman conquerors, the word receipt was spelled receite. The spelling eventually changed in English to add a ‘p’ to bring it in line with the Latin recipere (to receive), but the pronunciation stayed the same.
One might say that there are rules to spelling and pronouncing a language except when they do not apply.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to [email protected] . Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
