why silent letters are used in english.?

Answer 1

What LadyJag and Les say, plus remember that English today inherits much of it's form from Old English, which had very different pronunciations than Modern English, so often we have primarily an Old English spelling with a Modern English pronunciation. We have done away with many trailing "e" examples (Shoppe becoming Shop, and so on), but many other now-silent vowels remain present just from common usage. This is exaggerated in terms of regional dialects and local pronunciations -- like how some people tease Bostonians for pronouncing "Park the car in Harvard Yard" as "Pok the caw in Hahvod Yod" (I am a California boy descended from Bostonians so I know...)

English also tends to adopt words from other languages rather frequently -- in this case, many letters that appear to be silent are really trying to communicate the fact that in it's native language this word would be pronounced using a phoneme which does not exist in the English language. A classic example would be the French term "Fleur de Lis" (the "e" in Fleur is silent when pronounced in English, because the proper French pronunciation uses a phoneme slightly different from any of the English phonemes). Right now it is still spelled in it's French form, but pronounced in an Anglicized form. In time the English spelling will probably change a bit, making it appear to be an English word with a silent or oddly-pronounced letter.

Answer 2

The spelling system of English was created hundreds of years ago, when the pronunciation was different. At that time, the spelling represented the pronunciation very well. Since then, the pronunciation has changed, but the spelling is still the same. Now the spelling doesn't represent the pronunciation as well as it used to. This is the reason for silent letters.

Answer 3

English is a Germanic language and our root words tend to be phonetic, as do words adopted from Greek, Latin and Scandinavian languages.

Most English words with silent letters come from French or other Romance languages. Celtic languages (Welsh, Gaelic, Breton) are not phonetic and they have unusual spellings, but they have little influence on English, though Saxon does.

The term "anglo-saxon" comes from the mixing of Germans and Britons in the first millennium; Norse invaders came, and German (anglo) mercenaries were hired to fight them off. But instead of going home after they weren't needed, the Anglos stayed, hence why English is very Germanic.

Answer 4

Because in the 12 century, when the English were figuring out all the words, they had a bunch of letter left over when they were done. The English, being a tidy people even then, felt this was in poor taste so someone, perhaps the famous cleric Thomas Beckett, decided to attach them to existing words.

Hence, neumonia became Pneumonia and so on.

Answer 5

Yes Lady Jaq has a point. English spelling also reflects the derivation of words, as for example psycho- from the Greek, Aardvark (why not ardvark?) from the Dutch etc etc.

Answer 6

to segregate the enormous words in english there are silent words like pneumonia which is spelt like nee-mo-nia the vowels and its sounds ought to be differentiated and according to the phonetix its apt

Answer 7

To differentiate between the various vowel sounds.
Examples:
hid vs. hide
tom vs. tomb
sam vs. same
quit vs. quite

Answer 8

To confuse you!!! No, just kidding.

Answer 9

to make the word look better lol idk :)