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Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word; e.g., vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would. Silent letters may help the reader to stress the correct syllable (compare physics to physiques). The final fe in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where *giraf might suggest initial-stress.
For example, the initial k is not silent in words such as German Knecht which is a cognate of knight, Knoten which is a cognate of knot, etc. Likewise, g was probably a voiced velar plosive and the initial g was not silent: for example, German Gnom, a cognate of gnome, Gneis, a cognate of gneiss, etc.
In this example, the g actually became a glide /j/, so in a sense, the length of the consonant stayed where it always had been, and there was no "compensation". The silent e rule became available to represent long vowels in writing that arose from other sources; Old English brŷd, representing *bruʒd-i-, became Modern English bride.
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 ...
Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English pronunciation. Examples include the l in talk, half, calf, etc., the w in two and sword, gh as mentioned above in numerous words such as though, daughter, night, brought, and the commonly encountered silent e (discussed further below).
Examples of words with silent letters that have begun to be often or sometimes pronounced include often, Wednesday, island, and knife. In addition, words traditionally pronounced with reduced vowels or omitted consonants (e.g. cupboard, Worcester), may be subject to a spelling pronunciation.
Examples include the silent h in ghost (to match Dutch gheest, which later became geest), aghast, ghastly and gherkin. The silent h in other words—such as ghospel, ghossip and ghizzard —was later removed. [4]: 4 There have been two periods when spelling reform of the English language has attracted particular interest.
Sometimes a silent letter is added to help indicate pronunciation. For example, a silent e usually indicates the soft pronunciation, as in change ; this may be maintained before a suffix to indicate this pronunciation (as in changeable ), despite the rule that usually drops this letter.