Have you ever wondered why there are silent letters in the English Language? If yes, you are probably not the only one; we are all in the same boat. Silent letters are one of the most complicated and confusing concepts in the English language. For example, the ‘h’ in chaos, the ‘p’ in psychology, the ‘k’ in knowledge, and the ‘h’ in honest makes no sense, right?
As annoying as it sounds, about 70% of the English language consists of Silent letters, and we have to learn and live them. Doing this can be challenging, especially when you have to memorize the unnecessary spellings and learn the pronunciation. But honestly, there are some legitimate explanations and logical reasons why English has so many Silent Letters. Want to know about those reasons? Don’t worry; we have got you covered!
In this post, we will explain why English has so many words with silent letters. But first, let us briefly go through what silent letters are. Keep Reading; you won’t regret it!
Silent letters or a silent letter is a letter that is not read or heard when you are pronouncing a word. Here are a few examples of what we mean:
➔ The k in knock.
➔ The a in bread.
➔ The b in subtle.
➔ The n in column.
➔ The h in school.
Every alphabet in the English language plays the character of a silent letter in one word or another. You can find these letters anywhere in a word; beginning, middle, or end. Silent letters are pesky but extremely important. Therefore, it is essential to grasp their concept as soon as possible.
Now you must be wondering, “where did silent letters even come from?” or “what is the history of this concept?”. Well, we will tell you. The English scholars of the 15th century are mainly responsible for this. Silent letters came into being because of their ego and the urge to show off their language as much as they could.
English was not considered a standardized language back in the 15th century, and people coming from different origins like Germany and Netherlands had complete control to change the words as they pleased. That is why they started adding extra letters in words to resemble their original languages. For example, scholars added ‘b’ to the original word ‘dout’ to tell people it originated from the Latin word ‘dubitare’. Crazy? I know, right. No one asked them for a crazy change and added an unnecessary letter to a perfectly fine word.
Similarly, scholars coming from France, Germany, Rome, etc., started changing the language however they wanted. However, do you know a fun fact? At that time, people actually used to pronounce silent letters. Yes, the ‘w’ in ‘write’ was pronounced, and the ‘k’ in knight was also pronounced during the 15th and 16th centuries.
Later, the pronunciation of the English language changed and became more sensible, but unfortunately, the spellings and the letters remained the same. So, that is how silent letters came into being and why they are still here without any use.
Now that you have gone through the origin and history of silent letters, it’s time to learn about their basic types. Here you go:
Auxiliary Letters
Two letters that combine together to form one sound are called auxiliary letters. However, they do not sound like either of the letters, or they produce the sound of only one of those letters. Here are some perfect examples of Auxiliary Silent Letters:
➔ The ‘ff’ in huffed.
➔ The sound ‘ph’ should have been a single letter ‘f’.
➔ The ‘ch’ in school should have been a single letter ‘c’.
Dummy Silent Letters are further divided into two sub-types: Inert Letters and Empty Letters.
Inert Letters are the letters that you can sometimes hear or sometimes not in a word. For example:
➔ In resign, we can not hear the g.
➔ In resignation, we can hear the g.
➔ In malign, we can not here the g.
➔ In malignant, we can hear the g.
Empty Letters are letters that have no purpose or function in a letter. Just like their name, they are just empty, and all you need to do is memorize the word spellings to remember them. Here are the examples of how empty letters are used in words:
➔ b: dumb, climb, thumb, doubt, debt
➔ c: crescent, descend, conscious
➔ ch: yacht
➔ d: badge, edge, wedge, wednesday
➔ h: honor, spaghetti, hour, rhyme
➔ g: sign, gnat, gnome, gnash
➔ m: mnemonic, mnemonically
➔ p: receipt, psionic, raspberry, phthisis
➔ n: limn, column, autumn, hymn
➔ t: hustle, bustle, nestle, rustle, pestle
➔ k: knit, knob, knickers, knee, knot, know
Now, let us come to the actual question; Why does English have so many Silent Letters? Though we think you already know the answer by now after reading the origin and history of silent letters, explaining to you once again is our duty! Here is a complete list of reasons:
1. We have so many silent letters in the English Language because of its history and changes the scholars made before it was standardized.
2. People actually used to pronounce the silent letters back in the 15th and 16th centuries. Later, the pronunciation of the words changed, but the spelling didn’t because the language was already standardized. The ‘t’ in often, castle, and soften were actually pronounced. The 'k' in knock, knight, and knife were also pronounced.
3. Silent letters can also help us in differentiating the homophones. For example, the words ‘hour’ and ‘our’ sound the same, but the silent letter ‘h’ in hour helps us in differentiating between the two words. Similarly, the word ‘new’ and ‘knew’ sound the same, but the silent letter ‘k’ helps us differentiate.
Silent letters are indeed annoying and hard to memorize in spelling but trust me; they do have their own reasons, benefits, and importance. This post was just an introduction to silent letters; the English language is filled with thousands of other complex words with silent letters.
I hope this little effort by us helped you understand why silent letters are important or why they even exist. If you still have any questions or problem learning about silent letters, you can always hire professional and experienced English tutors from our website. They will clear your concepts with their expertise and will help you memorize the spellings using practical tips and tricks.
