English Orthography - Silent Letters

Silent Letters

Further information: Silent letter

Some letters do not provide any information about contemporary English pronunciation. For example, in Old and Middle English was an allophone of /f/ occurring between vowels. The deletion of historical final schwas (weak vowels) at the end of words such as give and have phonemicized /v/, but the now-silent ⟨e⟩ remained at the end of most /v/-final words. Words spelled with final ⟨v⟩ such as rev and Slav remain comparatively rare.

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Famous quotes containing the words silent and/or letters:

    “We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.”
    —Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)

    “Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.”
    —Samuel Butler (1835–1902)