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:

    This city now doth, like a garment, wear
    The beauty of the morning; silent bare,
    Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
    Open unto the fields and to the sky;
    All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.
    —A.A. (Alan Alexander)