Silent letters

Why they exist and common examples with audio

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

Hello everyone!

One thing that’s difficult about learning English is that words are often not spelt the way they sound, or they aren’t pronounced how they look. Today’s post is going to focus on words which contain silent letters. You can also listen to the pronunciation with the audio tracks.

First of all, have you ever wondered why silent letters exist? Here are a few reasons.

1. The way words are pronounced has gradually changed over time. Some silent letters were actually pronounced hundreds of years ago. For example, people used to say the silent “k” in words like “knife”.

2. Some English words come from other languages. If the word contains unusual combinations of letters that are difficult to pronounce, then those letters may become silent eventually. An example of this is “psychology”, which comes from Greek, and has a silent “p”.

3. In the past, spelling wasn’t actually standardised. People could spell words however they wanted! (Apparently, Shakespeare didn’t even write his own name the same way every time.) When the printing press was invented, spelling became more standardised. Some of the people who operated the printing press were from The Netherlands and Germany so they spelt words close to how they wrote them in their own language. These spellings then became the norm. That’s why we have a silent “gh” in words like “light”.

4. Similarly, some scholars actually added letters to words to remind us of the Latin origins of words. That’s why we have a “b” in “doubt” and a “p” in receipt.

5. I’ve read in a few places that silent letters exist to help us distinguish between homophones - words that sound the same but have a different spelling. I’m not an expert but I don’t think that actually happened deliberately. It seems more likely to me that homophones were originally pronounced differently but then evolved until they sounded the same. However, I think it’s possible that somebody decided it would be a good idea to keep the two different spellings to help us.

Here’s a list of words with silent letters. It’s not a complete list by any means. There’s also a video version of this lesson at the bottom of the page.

Silent B

bomb comb numb climb crumb thumb dumb lamb limb tomb womb plumber
debt doubt

Silent C

muscle scent scene descend discipline conscious science scissors crescent fascinate abscess

Silent G

sign campaign reign sovereign resign champagne benign foreign
gnaw gnat gnome

Silent H

hour honest honour
wheel where why white
cheetah exhibit
school chemist choir echo chaos
ghost yoghurt
rhubarb rhino rhyme

Silent GH

night light right bright
sleigh high eight neighbour
although through daughter naughty
bought fought thought caught taught

Silent I

fruit suit business

Silent K

knee know knife knob knowledge knack knitting knuckle knot knead knight knock kneel

 

Silent L

chalk talk walk yolk
calm palm psalm almond salmon
calf half
would could should

Silent N

autumn column damn condemn solemn hymn

Silent P

psychology psychiatrist psychopath psychic
cupboard raspberry coup receipt
pneumatic pneumonia

Silent S

isle aisle island debris

(You might notice that the first two words sound the same.)

Silent T

whistle Christmas castle wrestling listen fasten often soften
ballet duvet bouquet
mortgage

Silent U

biscuit build circuit disguise
guard guess guest guide guitar guilty league dialogue catalogue tongue

Silent W

who whole whose
writing wrist wrong wrinkle wrestle wrap wriggle
sword two answer

Please note that I’m British and this is how we say the words in the UK. There are also a few words that are pronounced different ways by different people. For example, I have heard people pronounce the “t” in “often” and the “l” in “almond” but this is less common.

Here’s the video version of this lesson!

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See you next week!

Katie