Why are silent alphabets used in English Words?

Answer 1

Answer: Why are silent letters used?There are many answers. First, spoken language changes faster than orthography, thus English, like many other languages, still retains old ways of writing words that don't correspond anymore to the actual pronounciation. Second, when a foreign word is borrowed, it often retains its original orthography, but is pronounced differently in English. Third, English sounds are more than the alphabet symbols, so you often have to use more than one letter to represent a sound. In the IPA (International Phonetics Association) alphabet, there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters, but it is a very technical and complicated system, that would not be easy to use in everyday writing.

Comment

Some letters are silent in some dialects and pronounced in others. Examples: Often was pronounced with silent "t" when I was young in Australia, now, under the influence of outside speakers, many people pronounce the "t". Similarly, in the word white, which is a respelling of the Old English HWIT (with long "I"), the "h" is sounded and many English speakers still pronounce the "h" before the "w", especially educated speakers and Received Pronunciation speakers in UK. Some consonants are becoming silent in Australian English, even amongst "educated" speakers like radio announcers, with twenty pronounced "twenny" and gift, "gif". One hopes that this is more laziness and not a permanent change.

To the above answer can be added that some letters were added to English words for various reasons, an example being "island" which comes from Old English, igland; during the 16th Century the "s" was added due to a (incorrect) perception of a relationship with the the French word isle which had a silent "s" (later dropped altogether, to Île). Also, some words like "knight" from Old English cniht originally had the "k" sound pronounced. The "h" in cniht was originally pronounced like the "ch" in Scottish loch, when Norman French scribes wrote the OE word down after 1066 they substituted "gh" for "h" and over time, pronunciation changed such that the "gh" became silent although English speakers know that it gives the "i" the long sound that would otherwise be denoted by having an "e" added to the end of the word (bit/bite etc).

• For more information on the occurence and use of silent letters in the English language, see Related links below this box.

Answer 2

English spelling has more than one purpose. It has to enable you to identify a word, and to indicate in some manner how the word is pronounced, but it is also spelled in a certain way because of its derivation (or etymology as it is called) in order to give you some sense of why that word means what it does. English spelling is full of implied history lessons. Some words come from old Anglo-Saxon, others are derived from French, some from Latin. And so forth.