why do we have silent letters?

Question

why dont we just leave the letter out if you dont pronounce it?

Answer 1

Because the letters, although silent, are not simply decorative. They are doing something. They modify the sounds of other letters, creating long vowels, diphthongs (aka "gliding vowels"), etc.

An easy example is "hat" vs. "hate". The difference is the silent "e" which in this case makes the a "say it's name" (as my second grade teacher used to put it), changing the short "a" in "hat" to the long "a" in "hate". Without the silent "e", the two words would look the same and we would be forced to guess from context which word was which.

English is complicated because it doesn't have a single base. It was created from a melding of Old English (aka Anglo-Saxon) with Norman French. Old English has a Germanic base. Old French as a Latin base. The elements of English that are Germanic derived follow one set of rules and the elements that are Latin derived follow another. Each is internally consistent. It's only if you assume a single base and a single set of spelling/grammer rules, that English looks like it makes not sense.

Answer 2

The silent letters are often a remnant of the language from which a particular word descends; many words that we got from French, in particular, have silent letters. In addition, silent letters do provide clues as to pronunciation, such as the "e" at the end of a word that indicates that the other vowel in the word is intended to have a "long" sound.

Answer 3

I know...I think it comes from the old english ways they used to spell things