Pronunciation: Silent Letters

WHAT ARE 'SILENT LETTERS'?

A silent letter is a letter that appears in a particular word, but does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. The bad news is that English has a lot of silent letters, and they create problems for both native and non-native speakers of English, because they make it more difficult to guess the spelling of many spoken words or the pronunciation of many written words.

How do silent letters arise?

Pronunciation changes occurring without a spelling change. The <gh> spelling was in Old English pronounced /x/ in such words as light.

Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rho (?) and roughly aspirated rho (?) in Ancient Greek, represented by <r> and <rh> in Latin, but merged to the same [r] in English. Similarly with <f> / <ph>, the latter from Greek phi.

Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters e.g. silent <th> in asthma, silent <t> in Christmas. Similarly with alien clusters such as Greek initial <ps> in psychology and <mn> in mnemonic.

Occasionally, spurious letters are inserted in a spelling. The <b> in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.

NOT ALL SILENT LETTERS ARE COMPLETELY REDUNDANT

Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.

Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic 'vinyard' would.

The final <fe> in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where 'giraf' might suggest initial-stress.

Silent letters help to show long vowels e.g. rid/ride

Silent letters help to show 'hard' consonants e.g. guest/gest

They can help to connect different forms of the same word e.g. resign/resignation.

Since accent and pronunciation differ, letters may be silent for some speakers but not others. In non-rhotic accents, <r> is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h-dropping accents, <h> is silent. A speaker may pronounce <t> in "often" or "tsunami" or neither or both.