Silent letter
Encyclopedia
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
. Silent letters create problems for both native and non-native speakers of a language, as they make it more difficult to guess the spellings of spoken words.
Phonetic transcriptions that better depict pronunciation and which note changes due to grammar and proximity of other words require a symbol to show that the letter is mute. Handwritten notes use a circle with a line through it and the sound is called "zero"; it resembles the symbol for the "empty set
", but must not be confused with the Danish
and Norwegian
letter Ø
. In printed or computer graphic presentation using the IPA system, the symbol ∅ is used.
distinguishes different kinds of "silent" letter, which present differing degrees of difficulty to readers and writers:
The distinction between "endocentric" digraphs and empty letters is somewhat arbitrary. For example, in such words as little and bottle one might view ⟨le⟩ as an "endocentric" digraph for /əl/, or view ⟨e⟩ as an empty letter; similarly with ⟨bu⟩ or ⟨u⟩ in buy and build.
Not all silent letters are completely redundant:
Silent letters arise in several ways:
Since accent and pronunciation differ, letters may be silent for some speakers but not others. In non-rhotic accents, ⟨r⟩ is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h dropping accents, ⟨h⟩ is silent. A speaker may pronounce ⟨t⟩ in often or tsunami or neither or both.
In french most of the time the last letter of a word is not pronounced or silent.
/ə/; it allows the preservation of a preceding consonant, often allowing the preservation of a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine forms in writing (vert, verte (green); the ⟨t⟩ is pronounced in the latter but not the former) or preventing an awkward ending of a word ending in a consonant and a liquid (peuple, sucre). After ⟨é⟩, ⟨i⟩, or ⟨u⟩, a final ⟨e⟩ (but not ⟨é⟩) is silent. The spelling ⟨eau⟩ is pronounced just the same as that for ⟨au⟩ and is entirely an etymological distinction, so in that context, the ⟨e⟩ is silent.
After ⟨g⟩ or ⟨q⟩, ⟨u⟩ is almost always silent.
s, while an intervocalic single ⟨s⟩ is voiced
z.
The nasal consonants ⟨m
⟩ and ⟨n
⟩ when final or preceding a consonant ordinarily nasalize a preceding vowel but are not themselves pronounced (faim, tomber, vin, vendre). Initial and intervocalic ⟨m⟩ and ⟨n⟩, even before a final silent ⟨e⟩, are pronounced: aimer, jaune.
Most final consonants are silent, usual exceptions to be found with the letters ⟨c⟩, ⟨f⟩, ⟨l⟩, and ⟨r⟩ (the English word careful is mnemonic
for this set). But even this rule has its exceptions: final ⟨r⟩ in the infinitive of all first conjugation (but not second, third, or fourth conjugation) verbs is effectively silent, although it forces a pronunciation of the preceding ⟨e⟩ as if it were ⟨é⟩. Final ⟨l⟩ is silent after ⟨i⟩ even in a diphthong (oeuil, appareil, travail). The third-person plural verb ending -ent is always silent.
Final consonants that might be silent in other contexts (finally or before another consonant) may seem to reappear in pronunciation in liaison: ils ont ilz‿ɔ̃ "they have", as opposed to ils vont il vɔ̃ "they go"; liaison is the retention (between words in certain syntactic relationships) of a historical sound
otherwise lost, and often has grammatical or lexical significance.
, Spanish orthography retains some silent letters:
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
. Silent letters create problems for both native and non-native speakers of a language, as they make it more difficult to guess the spellings of spoken words.
Phonetic transcriptions that better depict pronunciation and which note changes due to grammar and proximity of other words require a symbol to show that the letter is mute. Handwritten notes use a circle with a line through it and the sound is called "zero"; it resembles the symbol for the "empty set
Empty set
In mathematics, and more specifically set theory, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality is zero. Some axiomatic set theories assure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set; in other theories, its existence can be deduced...
", but must not be confused with the Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
and Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
letter Ø
Ø
Ø — minuscule: "ø", is a vowel and a letter used in the Danish, Faroese, Norwegian and Southern Sami languages.It's mostly used as a representation of mid front rounded vowels, such as ø œ, except for Southern Sami where it's used as an [oe] diphtong.The name of this letter is the same as the sound...
. In printed or computer graphic presentation using the IPA system, the symbol ∅ is used.
English
One of the noted difficulties of English spelling is a high number of silent letters. CarneyCarney
-Persons named Carney :* Alan Carney , American actor and comedian* Art Carney , American actor best known for playing Ed Norton on The Honeymooners* Charles J...
distinguishes different kinds of "silent" letter, which present differing degrees of difficulty to readers and writers:
- Auxiliary letters which, with another letter, constitute digraphDigraph (orthography)A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
s, i.e. two letters combined which represent a single phonemePhonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
. These may further be categorized as- "exocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is different from that of either of its constituent letters. These are rarely considered "silent". There are examples
- where the phoneme has no standard single-letter representation, as with consonants ⟨ng⟩ for /ŋ/ as in sing, ⟨th⟩ for /θ/ as in thin or /ð/ as in then, and ⟨sh⟩ for /ʃ/ as in show, and diphthongDiphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s ⟨ou⟩ in out or ⟨oi⟩ in point. These are the default spellings for the relevant sounds and present no special difficulty for readers or writers. - where standard single-letter representation uses another letter, as with ⟨gh⟩ in enough or ⟨ph⟩ in physical instead of ⟨f⟩. These are irregular for writers but may be less difficult for readers.
- where the phoneme has no standard single-letter representation, as with consonants ⟨ng⟩ for /ŋ/ as in sing, ⟨th⟩ for /θ/ as in thin or /ð/ as in then, and ⟨sh⟩ for /ʃ/ as in show, and diphthong
- "endocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is the same as that of one of its constituent letters. These include
- most double consonants, as ⟨bb⟩ in clubbed; though not geminate consonants, as ⟨ss⟩ in misspell. Doubling due to suffixSuffixIn linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
ation or inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
is regular; otherwise it may present difficulty to writers (e.g. accommodate is often misspelt) but not to readers. - the discontiguous digraphs whose second element is "magic eSilent ESilent e is a writing convention in English spelling. A silent letter e at the end of a word often signals a specific pronunciation of the preceding vowel letter, as in the difference between "rid" and "ride" . This orthographic pattern followed the phonological changes of the Great Vowel Shift...
", e.g. ⟨a_e⟩ in rate (cf. rat), ⟨i_e⟩ in fine (cf. fin). This is the regular way to represent "long" vowels in the last syllableSyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
of a morphemeMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
. - others such as ⟨ck⟩ (which is in effect the "doubled" form of ⟨k⟩), ⟨gu⟩ as in guard, vogue; ⟨ea⟩ as in bread, heavy, etc. These are difficult for writers and sometimes for readers.
- most double consonants, as ⟨bb⟩ in clubbed; though not geminate consonants, as ⟨ss⟩ in misspell. Doubling due to suffix
- "exocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is different from that of either of its constituent letters. These are rarely considered "silent". There are examples
- Dummy letters with no relation to neighbouring letters and no correspondence in pronunciation:
- Some are inert letters, which are sounded in a cognateCognateIn linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
word: e.g. ⟨n⟩ in damn (cf. damnation); ⟨g⟩ in phlegm (cf. phlegmatic); ⟨a⟩ in practically (cf. practical). If the cognate is obvious, it may aid writers in spelling, but mislead readers in pronunciation. - The rest are empty letters which never have a sound, e.g. ⟨w⟩ in answer, ⟨h⟩ in Sarah, ⟨s⟩ in island, ⟨b⟩ in subtle, the ⟨t⟩ in ballet. These present the greatest difficulty to writers and often to readers.
- Some are inert letters, which are sounded in a cognate
The distinction between "endocentric" digraphs and empty letters is somewhat arbitrary. For example, in such words as little and bottle one might view ⟨le⟩ as an "endocentric" digraph for /əl/, or view ⟨e⟩ as an empty letter; similarly with ⟨bu⟩ or ⟨u⟩ in buy and build.
Not all silent letters are completely redundant:
- Silent letters can distinguish between homophoneHomophoneA homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words. - Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word, e.g. vineyard suggests vineVineA vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...
s more than the phonetic *vinyard would. - The final ⟨fe⟩ in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where *giraf might suggest initial-stress.
Silent letters arise in several ways:
- Sound changeSound changeSound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
s occurring without a spelling change. The digraphDigraph (orthography)A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
⟨gh⟩ was pronounced x in Middle English in such words as light. - Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rhoRho (letter)Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic resh "head"...
(ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) in Ancient GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, represented by ⟨r⟩ and ⟨rh⟩ in LatinLatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, but merged to the same [r] in English. Similarly with ⟨f⟩ / ⟨ph⟩, the latter from Greek phiPhi (letter)Phi , pronounced or sometimes in English, and in modern Greek, is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greek, it represents , a voiceless labiodental fricative. In Ancient Greek it represented , an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive...
. - Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters e.g. silent ⟨th⟩ in asthma, silent ⟨t⟩ in Christmas. Similarly with alien clusters such as GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
initial ⟨ps⟩ in psychology and ⟨mn⟩ in mnemonic. - Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling. The ⟨b⟩ in debt and doubt was inserted to reflect Latin cognates like debit and dubitable.
Since accent and pronunciation differ, letters may be silent for some speakers but not others. In non-rhotic accents, ⟨r⟩ is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h dropping accents, ⟨h⟩ is silent. A speaker may pronounce ⟨t⟩ in often or tsunami or neither or both.
French
Silent letters are common in French. Ignoring auxiliary letters that create digraphs (such as ⟨ch⟩, ⟨gn⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨eu⟩, ⟨ei⟩, and ⟨ou⟩, and ⟨m⟩ and ⟨n⟩ as signals for nasalized vowels), they include almost every possible letter except ⟨a⟩, ⟨j⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨q⟩, ⟨v⟩, and ⟨y⟩.In french most of the time the last letter of a word is not pronounced or silent.
Vowels
Final ⟨e⟩ is silent or at least (in poetry and song) a nearly-silent schwaSchwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
/ə/; it allows the preservation of a preceding consonant, often allowing the preservation of a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine forms in writing (vert, verte (green); the ⟨t⟩ is pronounced in the latter but not the former) or preventing an awkward ending of a word ending in a consonant and a liquid (peuple, sucre). After ⟨é⟩, ⟨i⟩, or ⟨u⟩, a final ⟨e⟩ (but not ⟨é⟩) is silent. The spelling ⟨eau⟩ is pronounced just the same as that for ⟨au⟩ and is entirely an etymological distinction, so in that context, the ⟨e⟩ is silent.
After ⟨g⟩ or ⟨q⟩, ⟨u⟩ is almost always silent.
Consonants
The letter ⟨h⟩ is always silent, except in the digraphs ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ph⟩. Numerous doubled consonants exist; French does not distinguish doubled consonants from single consonants in pronunciation as does Italian. A marked distinction exists between a single and doubled ⟨s⟩: doubled ⟨ss⟩ is always voicelessVoiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
s, while an intervocalic single ⟨s⟩ is voiced
VOICED
Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design is a virtual organization that promotes innovation in engineering design. This project is the collaborative work of researchers at five universities across the United States, and is funded by the National Science Foundation...
z.
The nasal consonants ⟨m
M
M is the thirteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu . Semitic Mem probably originally pictured water...
⟩ and ⟨n
N
N is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet...
⟩ when final or preceding a consonant ordinarily nasalize a preceding vowel but are not themselves pronounced (faim, tomber, vin, vendre). Initial and intervocalic ⟨m⟩ and ⟨n⟩, even before a final silent ⟨e⟩, are pronounced: aimer, jaune.
Most final consonants are silent, usual exceptions to be found with the letters ⟨c⟩, ⟨f⟩, ⟨l⟩, and ⟨r⟩ (the English word careful is mnemonic
Mnemonic
A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
for this set). But even this rule has its exceptions: final ⟨r⟩ in the infinitive of all first conjugation (but not second, third, or fourth conjugation) verbs is effectively silent, although it forces a pronunciation of the preceding ⟨e⟩ as if it were ⟨é⟩. Final ⟨l⟩ is silent after ⟨i⟩ even in a diphthong (oeuil, appareil, travail). The third-person plural verb ending -ent is always silent.
Final consonants that might be silent in other contexts (finally or before another consonant) may seem to reappear in pronunciation in liaison: ils ont ilz‿ɔ̃ "they have", as opposed to ils vont il vɔ̃ "they go"; liaison is the retention (between words in certain syntactic relationships) of a historical sound
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
otherwise lost, and often has grammatical or lexical significance.
Spanish
Despite being rather phonemicPhonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
, Spanish orthography retains some silent letters:
- ⟨h⟩ is silent outside of the digraph ⟨ch⟩.
- The digraph ⟨qu⟩, used to represent k before the front vowels ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩, has a silent ⟨u⟩
- ⟨gu⟩ for /ɡ/ has the same silent ⟨u⟩ before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩. When the ⟨u⟩ is not silent it must be marked with a trema: ⟨ü⟩. Before ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩, the ⟨u⟩ is not silent.
- Alien consonant clusters may be simplified in pronunciation, but retain the silent letters: psicología sikoloˈxia
See also
- Silent eSilent ESilent e is a writing convention in English spelling. A silent letter e at the end of a word often signals a specific pronunciation of the preceding vowel letter, as in the difference between "rid" and "ride" . This orthographic pattern followed the phonological changes of the Great Vowel Shift...
- Silent kSilent kA silent ⟨k⟩ occurs when the letter ⟨k⟩ occurs in a word but does not actually reflect the pronunciation of a voiceless velar plosive , or any sound for that matter. A silent ⟨k⟩ is quite common in the English language, most often preceding an ⟨n⟩ at the beginning of a word...
- Three letter ruleThree letter ruleIn English spelling, the three letter rule is the observation that one- and two-letter words tend to be function words such as I, at, he, if, of, or, etc. As a consequence of the rule, "content words" tend to have at least three letters...
source of some common English silent letters. - List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations, many with multiple silent letters.