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.

Read more about this topic:  English Orthography

Famous quotes containing the words silent and/or letters:

    “He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were in his power—how he could smite the loudest of them, were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose.”
    —Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)

    “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)