Why Are There Silent Letters?
The English language is notorious for its use of silent letters. In fact, about 60
percent of English words contain a silent letter. But these often distressing
words weren’t intended to be so confusing.
Some people think it would be ideal if a language had one letter for
every sound. Unfortunately, the English language has about 45
sounds and only 26 letters.
Many of those letters have more than one sound, and combinations of
letters are often used to create other sounds. With so many sounds
and not enough letters, it's even more curious that more than half of
the letters in the alphabet are silent at least part of the time.
Historians believe that early on English had very few silent letters.
However, during the 15th century, many words from other languages,
such as Latin and French, were added to the English language.
Often these new words didn't follow English rules of grammar. Since
their spellings were fixed, some letters became silent when
pronounced in English. Today, experts estimate
that approximately 60% of English words have silent letters.
For example, the word "knife" could be spelled "nif" if you only used
the letters that made sounds. Yet, it has a "k" at the start and an "e" at
the end.
Knife, and many other words with a silent "k" or "g" at the beginning
(such as gnaw and knee), are Viking words.
In Scandinavian countries, these letters are pronounced. In English,
however, their spellings are retained while their pronunciations
change, resulting in silent letters.
While people trying to learn English may find silent letters frustrating,
they can be useful. For example, silent letters help to distinguish
between homophones (words with the same sound but different
spellings and meanings) in writing. Thanks to silent letters, you can
know the difference between two, to, and too!
Other words with silent letters are borrowed from other languages. For
instance, “tsunami” is actually a Japanese word, and “psychology” comes
from the Greek words “psyche” (meaning spirit or soul) and “logica” (meaning
the study of something).
However, the consonant combinations “ts” and “ps” aren’t used to start words
in English, so the first letters became silent so it would meet the language’s
phonological rules.
But there is one more factor that resulted in these silent letters: ego.
Some people with influence over how the English language would evolve
added extra letters simply because they could. Many printers who operated
printing presses in England came from the Netherlands and Germany.
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. In a similar way, scholars added the silent “b” to “doubt” to
educate the (what they assumed was) oblivious public on the word’s
derivation from the Latin “dubitare.” In reality, all they did was turn “dout” into
“doubt” when no one asked for an unnecessary consonant.