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:

    “Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
    What is divinity if it can come
    Only in silent shadows and in dreams?”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “A hunger seized my heart; I read
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    The noble letters of the dead.”
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