Silent letter

Silent letters are letters written in words that, when spoken, do not correspond to the pronunciation of a given letter and also do not allow anyone to hear their sound when they appear in the word.

Many of them come from Old English. These include the k in know and knee, the second b in bomb and numb, the s in island, and the e in lame and lime. There is also a silent g in sign, which is from Middle English. Old English uses the sound of the silent k and gh from knight, which was pronounced at the time. The word changed its history.

Other silent letters may be the r in words from Old French, like hors d'ouvert and the sound of the t is sometimes heard in some words like often, but it may also be silent. There is also a silent w in answer, and the w is not pronounced. The word kneel starts with a silent k.

Silent letters exist in the spelling systems in many languages. They are very common in languages with deep orthographies, spelling systems with little one-to-one relationship between letters and sounds, like English, French, Thai, and Mongolian.