Why are some english spellings so crazy? Like, c (sounds see) but pronounced k in cat! How did it all started?

Answer 1

A lot of words are derived from a different language such as Latin or French....therefore the pronunciation is accordingly...but when it comes to cat, the rule is..."c is pronounced >s< before e and i and pronounced >k< before the other three vowels (cap, cop, cut).

Answer 2

Because, people tried to spell word they heard in other countries and and when they did all kinds of spellings were created. Let's not assume that all spelling is related to te origin of a word. Most English words were created in English speaking countries. We invent something, we name it. Ask yourself why are women mispelling their children's names on purpose. Because, they can and it makes them feel like they have do something special. The use of hard sounds and soft sounds is a spelling thing. Get your dictionary out, the big one and look up the Greek, Latin , French and German Alphabets. You will notice that they are not even close to the English alphabet in how they are pronounced. So we get a word in Greek , spell it in English and there you are. We ave done what we could and made ourselves happy in the process. Now for your next lesson, figure out why there isn't an "amn't". There is an isn't, a weren't, a wasn't , a haven't, and a hadn't, but not an amn't? Hmmm.

Answer 3

The history of the English language explains this. We say "knife " like "nife" but we used to pronounce the "k". There are more examples too.

Also before William Caxton created the printing press and English was later on all spelled the same way, words could be spelled differntly. So there was a bit of chaos:

Example: ghirle, ghirl, girl

And English is not a phonetic language like Finnish for example. We do not say a word the way it is spelled.

English is not spelled the way it sounds due to the development of English as a language and the way people decide to spell things.

I like this:

enough: gh = f
philosophy: ph = f
fish: f =f

Answer 4

The history of English is broken up into three time periods and the English language was adapted from many other languages from Latin to the Germanic dialects. The English language is one of most difficult for people to learn, and even American students struggle with the phoenetic concepts while learning it in school. We know how to speak the language, yet we also don't always understand how one letter can have multiple "sounds", how one letter group can have multiple "sounds", and why the "e" is silent in many words.

Answer 5

Perhaps, We like to complicate things to prevent your brain from developing Alzheimers? or prevent it? Who knows! lol Actually, in my humble opinon, the correct answer was given by memimi.

Answer 6

i dont know...i'm italian and my language is more simply to read cuz we pronounce words as they're writed...but the grammar is harder...really harder! believ me!

Answer 7

There is no k in cat there is only a C in cat.....

Answer 8

get a layp
you pakin pagot

Answer 9

because of pronouncuation

Answer 10

that's why we are dumber

thanks,

ss