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In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign U+2205 ∅ EMPTY SET, which resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø. A null or zero is an unpronounced or unwritten segment.
In English orthography, the letter k normally reflects the pronunciation of [] and the letter g normally is pronounced /ɡ/ or "hard" g , as in goose, gargoyle and game; /d͡ʒ/ or "soft" g , generally before i or e , as in giant, ginger and geology; or /ʒ/ in some words of French origin, such as rouge, beige and genre.
It is considered a single letter, called għajn (the same word for eye and spring, named for the corresponding Arabic letter ʿayn). It is usually silent, but it is necessary to be included because it changes the pronunciation of neighbouring letters, usually lengthening the succeeding vowels.
The English language is notorious for its use of silent letters. In fact, about 60 percent of English words contain a silent letter. In many cases, these silent letters actually were pronounced ...
By analogy with words like these, certain other words ending in /m/, which had no historical /b/ sound, had a silent letter b added to their spelling by way of hypercorrection. Such words include limb and crumb. [35] Where the final cluster /mn/ occurred, this was reduced to /m/ (the him-hymn merger), as in column, autumn, damn, solemn.
The silent e is usually kept when it is preceded by a c or g and the suffix does not start with e , i , or y to keep its softening effect (i.e. change to changeable, outrage to outrageous, etc.). A silent e is not usually dropped in compound words, such as comeback.
“Silent reviews” help TikTok users create content without words. Such nonverbal communication can bring interest and excitement into online conversations. Words are overrated.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 6 March 2025. Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters English alphabet An English-language pangram written with the FF Dax Regular typeface Script type Alphabet Time period c. 16th century – present Languages English Related scripts Parent systems (Proto-writing) Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto ...