Learning the English language is a lot like the Greek myth of Sisyphus pushing a rock up a mountain — just when you think you’ve accomplished it, you realize you need to learn an entirely new grammatical concept from square one. Take silent letters, which make it especially difficult for non-native speakers to learn English. Even if you’re a lifelong English speaker, you might find silent letters to be unnecessary and confusing. They make it harder to both spell and pronounce certain words. This begs the question: What’s the purpose of silent letters and why not just get rid of them?
Grammatically, silent letters are known as “empty” letters. Some examples include the “k” in “knife” and the “w” in “answer.” But you may be surprised to learn that these letters weren’t always silent. Old English speakers pronounced the “k” in “knife” and “knight.” Then around 1400, English underwent what’s known as the Great Vowel Shift. During this period, the pronunciation of many words changed dramatically, though the spelling of those very same words often stayed the same. This confounding schism resulted in many of the silent letters that still exist today.
So why don’t we just eliminate silent letters? First off, silent letters help differentiate between homophones such as “hours” and “ours.” Etymologists also use some silent letters to learn about word origins. This doesn’t affect the average English speaker, but it can be essential in studying the evolution of language. Lastly — and this may be the most frustrating reason — people have just come to accept the fact that these silent letters exist. The 1.5 billion English speakers across the world probably wouldn’t be too keen to learn parts of the language all over again.
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