Silent Letters
Further information: Silent letterSome 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.
Read more about this topic: English Orthography
Famous quotes containing the words silent and/or letters:
“With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!””
—Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)
“And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written her fair neck round about:
“Noli me tangere for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold though I seem tame.””
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)