Let me tell you something thats for the birds Good question. And perhaps they were, but that isn’t why silent letters started. Logic would dictate that America is such a language stew that there were misspellings, if not misunderstandings. Again, maybe, but we have to go way back for an answer that is considered credible. When I say way back, I’m talking Middle Ages, not the Revolutionary War era. This craziness cannot be laid at our feet. Well, not the Americas. English speakers? Maybe. *Go to Poems & Quotes to read the entire poem, “Silent Letters (Why?).” |
Where to First?
Let’s start with the Norman Conquest in 1066, just a little over 100 years after England’s establishment. Consider that the English at that time did not, in fact, speak English as we know it today. That land was settled by Germanic tribes, so the lovely Downton Abbey tones many of us love were not a thing. Not yet. You might think that when the Normans won the Battle of Hastings, the French language took precedence. No.
You see, Normans (from Normandy in northern France) were Vikings, per Britannica and other sources. Forget everything you were thinking about the French being either Les Miserable’s Bishop Myriel or Jean Valjean. Vikings were neither, and William the Conqueror’s troops were the descendants of those pirates. They did not necessarily speak the French of King Louis Philippe I, and their language did infiltrate the conversation.
- A g before an n is silent
- A k before an n is silent
- Most often, a consonant that follows an m is silent.
- Some French-origin words silence the beginning letter h –in hour and honor, for example.
- A similar situation exists with Germanic words where an h follows a c, and the resulting sound is k.
Read the full write-up at Grammarly.com.
Then the Greeks
No, Greece didn’t invade England as far as I know. However, the Romans did, and the Greeks accompanied them. The Greek Reporter tells us that they were both soldiers and tradesmen. That, and the English studied Greek literature and art. It was inevitable that their language would evolve.
One site, BritishCouncil.org, states that more than 150,000 English words are derived from the Greek. Of those, many are “technical and scientific”. Others are common. Here are a few examples:
- Character from charaktēr
- Episode from epeisodion
- Grammar from grammatikē
- Rhinoceros from rhinokerōs
This is a small sampling, and no. They don’t all contain silent letters. However, some of them nicely illustrate the differences in pronunciation of words that mean the same thing.
Medium hypothesizes that even though the pronunciation evolved, the silent letters often remained as a clue to the word of origin. We don’t pronounce the b in debt, but its presence points us to the Latin root, debitum. On the flip side, silent letters can identify which of two meanings a homonym might have. For instance, bail and bale sound the same, but any reader can distinguish the intent by the spelling. The same is true for capital and capitol.
Ought We Conclude with a Thought or Two?
Historical significance aside, why can’t we ditch the mute letters? One reason is that everyone doesn’t arrive at pronunciation the same way, even in the same country, and they certainly don’t across countries. Consider the prefix pneu. In the U.S., the ‘p’ is silent, but it is still [currently] pronounced in modern French conversation. You say you don’t care what the French are doing. Fair enough. There are other reasons to hang on to what shall not be uttered.
Some letters are silent because their existence made the word unpronounceable–at least for the group that inherited them from the French, Germans, Greeks, or Romans. The letters were left in for clarity and perhaps standardization, especially after the invention of the printing press. After all this time, do we care about provenance? Moot point. That ship has been sailing away for over 900 years. The fact is that the English-speaking population has increased by 600-fold since then, and most of those folks can read. The much smaller population in the 11th century also had a smaller literacy rate. If we were going to make changes, we needed to do it before the lift became unmanageable.
Apart from the staggering goal of re-educating millions upon millions, who would decide which letters bite the dust? This society can’t even agree on the degree to which the Oxford comma is useful or the definition of the word literacy. Prove me wrong.
Loved it! Thanks and Happy New Year!
Shallow topics can be more entertaining than the deep ones. 😉 Happy New Year to you and Mark!
Thanks Gayle! Very informative and funny! You obviously do a lot of research! Thanks for taking this time to share your insights with us all. Happy New Year to you and Andy!
Glad you enjoyed it. I love learning about stuff, regardless of its significance–or lack thereof. Happy New Year to you and Bill!
Slient letters are stupid. I spell words as I wish. If a silent one makes it in, it dodged a bullet.
Color me surprised at your approach. 😉