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Most final consonants are silent, except in most cases with the letters c , f , l , and r (the English word careful is a mnemonic for this set). But even this rule has its exceptions: final morphemic er is usually pronounced /e/ (= é ) rather than the expected /ɛʁ/.
Variably by dialect and even word, the / j / in this / j uː / may drop (rune / ˈ r uː n /, lute / ˈ l uː t /), causing a merger with / uː /; in other cases, the /j/ coalesces with the preceding consonant (issue / ˈ ɪ s. j uː / → / ˈ ɪ ʃ uː /), meaning that the silent e can affect the quality of a consonant much earlier in the ...
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 ...
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.
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.
In orthography, a zero consonant, silent initial, or null-onset letter is a consonant letter that does not correspond to a consonant sound, but is required when a word or syllable starts with a vowel (i.e. has a null onset).
This example illustrates how the aspirated h-word héros prevents the liaison, in which the otherwise-silent word-final consonant would be pronounced before the first vowel of the following word. Because the h is an aspirated h , the second entry is incorrect, as the hiatus prevents the final /z/ from being phonetically realised.
The lack of spoken words in a silent review, which requires an audience to infer whether a reviewer likes a product or not, may seem silly. However, the same kind of nonverbal communication occurs ...