Knee, gnome, island… why are there letters that just sit there doing nothing? If we don’t pronounce them, why do we even write them?The answer lies in the history of the English language — which is anything but simple. Many English words come from other languages like Old English, Latin, Greek, and French. When these words were borrowed, their spellings came along too. Over time, the way we spoke changed — but the spelling often stayed the same.Take knight, for example. Hundreds of years ago, people actually pronounced the “k” — it sounded like “k-nicht.” But as English evolved, those hard consonants faded. The “k” went silent, but the spelling didn’t.Silent letters also help us tell words apart. Think of write and right. They sound the same, but the silent letters give them different meanings on paper.And sometimes, silent letters were added just to make a word look more Latin or “fancy” — like the “b” in doubt, which was never really pronounced.So while silent letters can feel useless, they’re actually little time-travellers — keeping old sounds, meanings, and spellings alive in modern English.
Knee, gnome, island… why are there letters that just sit there doing nothing? If we don’t pronounce them, why do we even write them?The answer lies in the history of the English language — which is anything but simple. Many English words come from other languages like Old English, Latin, Greek, and French. When these words were borrowed, their spellings came along too. Over time, the way we spoke changed — but the spelling often stayed the same.Take knight, for example. Hundreds of years ago, people actually pronounced the “k” — it sounded like “k-nicht.” But as English evolved, those hard consonants faded. The “k” went silent, but the spelling didn’t.Silent letters also help us tell words apart. Think of write and right. They sound the same, but the silent letters give them different meanings on paper.And sometimes, silent letters were added just to make a word look more Latin or “fancy” — like the “b” in doubt, which was never really pronounced.So while silent letters can feel useless, they’re actually little time-travellers — keeping old sounds, meanings, and spellings alive in modern English.
