What is the basis of silent letters in english words ?

Question

i have tried and seen no similarity in non pronounced (silent) letters in many known words...

Answer 1

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Silent letters arise in several ways:

* 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 (ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) 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 consciously inserted in spelling. The <b> in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.

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.

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.

Source(s):

research

Answer 2

h

Source(s):

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=jO-_5…

Answer 3

I'm afraid there is no real pattern.

Some of the silent letters are because in the past (maybe hundreds of years ago) words were pronounced differently.

For those of us who grow up speaking native English, I suppose we just learn which letters are silent - but it makes spelling hard, even for British children!

The only way to be sure is to look at the pronunciation guide in a good dictionary and follow that.

Source(s):

56 year old Brit.

Answer 4

Sometime, the silent letters are needed for pronunciation purposes. For instance, the word MAD and MADE. The E is needed in MADE to tell the reader that the A is a long A. When the reader doesn't see an E at the end of the word, he/she knows the A is a short A. As far as the words like ROUGH and THROUGH are concerned, I see no reason why the GH has to be there in the word THROUGH. I'm sure, originally, there was a reason, but it seems archaic (the H is silent) today. I haven't a clue as to why the GH in ROUGH is pronounced like an F. Could be from some foreign (the G is silent) source. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help, but that is what I know.

Answer 5

I believe there are really no rules. You just have to learn them.