Silent Letters
in
English
Julie Peters – Ling 480
What are silent letters?
Silent letters are letters that appear
in the spelling of words, but don’t
make a sound.
So how many English words
have silent letters?
“According to Kent Jones, Education Committee,
Esperanto Society of Chicago, ‘More than 60% of
(English) words have silent letters.’”
British Council (n.d.)
What caused English to
have so many silent letters?
• Historical change
• Letters added to make the spelling look Latin or
French
• Borrowed words from other languages
• Sound combinations too difficult to say
Why should it matter to
me as a teacher?
• The silent letters can be confusing to
many learners, whether they speak
English as their first or second
language.
• The confusion can result in delays
with reading, writing, as well as
speaking English.
What good is it to have
silent letters?
• Distinguish between words that sound similar.
• They sometimes help to show long vowels or hard
consonants.
• They connect root words with affixes.
• They give insight into the meaning of a word.
• They give clues as to where the stress should be
in a word.
What are the different
kinds of silent letters?
• Auxiliary letters
– Exocentric digraphs
– Endocentric digraphs
• Dummy letters
– Inert letters
– Empty letters
Auxiliary Letters
Combined with another letter, it
represents a single phoneme.
Auxiliaryexocentric digraphs
• Not really considered silent, but
worth mentioning.
• “where the sound of the digraph is
different from that of either of its
constituent letters.”
Wikipedia (n.d.)
Auxiliaryexocentric digraphs
• Examples:
– English lacks the letter
– The letter in English is replaced with
another letter or combination of
letters.
Auxiliaryendocentric digraphs
“where the sound of the digraph is
the same as that of one of its
constituent letters.”
Wikipedia (n.d.)
Auxiliaryendocentric digraphs
• Doubled consonants, such as when adding suffixes
or inflection. Does not include geminate
consonants.
• Digraphs with the second element as magic e.
• Others that add a second element for various
reasons
Dummy Letters
“bear no relation to neighboring
letters and have no correspondence
in pronunciation.”
Wikipedia (n.d.)
Dummy Lettersinert letters
This is where a letter from a cognate
word stays.
Dummy Lettersempty letters
• Fits the description of silent letter
best.
• Creates the most confusion for
learners.
Are there rules I can
teach students?
• Axel Wijk wrote 100 rules for English spelling in
1959. May be unrealistic to try to teach.
• More realistic to have students memorize sight
words.
Works Cited
Beare, Kenneth. (n.d.). Pronunciation – Silent Letters. Retrieved from
http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/silent.htm.
British Council. (n.d.). Grammar: Silent Letters. Retrieved from
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-grammar-silent-letters.htm.
Carney, Edward. (1994). A Survey of English Spelling. London: Routledge.
Carney, 1997. English Spelling. London: Routledge.
Cook, Vivian. (n.d.). Silent Letters in English. Retrieved from
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/EnglishSpellingSystem/SilentLetters.htm.
Cook, Vivian. (1999). Teaching Spelling. Retrieved from
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/TeachingSpelling..htm
HowtoLearnEnglish. (2000-2010). English Language: Silent Letters. Retrieved from
http://www.howtolearnenglish.co.uk/english-language-silent-letters.html
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Silent Letter. Retrieved from http://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter.