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Today, the k is silent. We don't say kuh-nock or kuh-nee, but we used to. See below.

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Actually, this is due to historical change. English is a Germanic language, and the word knight is an old Germanic word (not borrowed from German). In the Old English, just like in German, the consonant k was pronounced together with the n. The sound disappeared from pronunciation only during 17th and 18th centuries, but as the spelling had already been set, the old pronunciation remained in the written form.

This is the case with all words beginning with "kn-" in English. Knee, knot, knight, knob etc. all were just few hundreds years ago pronounced with [kn] sound. This pronunciation still prevails in some forms of Scots.

So, indeed, when Shakespeare wrote "knight", he pronounced it more or less like [knIiht] (k-ne-ee-ht).

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13y ago

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