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:

    “O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
    I aft hae kissed sae fondly;
    And closed for ay, the sparkling glance
    That dwalt on me sae kindly;
    And moldering now in silent dust
    That heart that lo’ed me dearly!”
    —Robert Burns (1759–1796)

    “Two months dead, I wrestle with your name
    Whose separate letters make a paltry sum
    That is not you.”
    —Howard Moss (b. 1922)