In english why?

Question

In english why is there silent letters? I mean please that just makes no sence.

Answer 1

Maybe they ran out of ways to spell words? like bee and be

Answer 2

English has silent letters for two reasons - words that have changed pronunciation over time, and words that come from other languages (especially French). First, the changes over time: take a word like "knight". It was originally pronounced more or less like you'd expect by the spelling. But over the years, the pronunciation changed, yet the spelling did not. It was conserved, normally because the word was in use in enough widely printed or copied texts that people continued to spell it the same way. Other words changed spelling to match how they were pronounced: bishop, for example, was spelling biscop in Old English, but pronounced as we pronounce "bishop" today. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why some words changed spelling and others didn't, although commonality of usage and how much they were used in texts are probably contributing factors.

Second, for words from other languages: French, for example, has lots of silent letters (silent because those words in French changed over time). When the words came over to English, the generally maintained their same or very similar spelling. Thus we have a word like "ballet". This is a good example of the "conservativeness" of English - the tendency to conserve word forms brought in from other languages. Other languages are not so conservative - for example, ballet in Spanish is spelled how it's pronounced: "balé."

Answer 3

In many cases, the silent letters were originally pronounced. For instance, the word 'night' was pronounced like the German word 'nicht'. Over time, however, people began to speak faster, and stopped pronouncing letters that slow them down.

English is not alone in this phenomenon. Irish Gaelic can be very confusing. For instance, the name Caoghaim (if I'm remembering the spelling correctly) is pronounced Kee-veen', and is the original of Kevin.

French is even stranger. They took simple words like 'stable' (pronounced 'sta-bleh') and replaced the 's' with an 'e', so that - in this case - it became 'etable' (eh-tah'-bleh). And the nasalized pronunciation of the final 'n' in words only began in the early 19th century!

Each language has its idiosyncracies, so quit picking on English!

Answer 4

Well my friend silent letters arise in several ways:

1).Pronunciation changes occurring without a spelling change. The spelling was in Old English pronounced [x] in such words as light.
2).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 and in Latin, but merged to the same [r] in English. Similarly with / , the latter from Greek phi.
3).Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing e.g. silent in asthma, silent in grandfather. Similarly with alien clusters such as Greek initial in psychology and in mnemonic.
4).Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling. The 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, is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h-dropping accents, is silent. A speaker may pronounce in "often" or "tsunami" or neither or both.

Answer 5

It may not make sense to YOU. But English words have evolved from many different origins, including different languages. So we have complex pronunciations and spellings. You need to study linguistics or books dealing with the origin of words to understand better.

Answer 6

French has silent letters AND functionless accent marks. You beefing with them too?