Shhhhhh!!! – Silent letters!!!

“Silence speaks what words cannot!”- Some great philosopher has rightly said! And who wouldn’t agree… But what about the words which have letters in them which are silent! And most importantly, why do we have them, if they are not supposed to be pronounced!!!

The fact to be accepted here is that English is not a Phonemic language. By not being phonemic, it means that most letters carry more than one sound. And why so- because the English Alphabet has only 26 letters to produce 44 sounds!

Mostly, silent letters in English are diacritic (indicating change in pronunciation) letters. This means that rather than being pronounced, they change the pronunciation of another syllable. Compare the words 'hat' and 'hate'. The 'e' isn't pronounced in ‘hate’, but it changes the pronunciation of the vowel by lengthening it.

Another reason why some of these words have letters which are not pronounced is also an interesting tale. With the advent of printing press in Germany, invented by Gutenberg, most of the men manning these machines were either German or from Belgium (Flanders - Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium). Spellings of words were not standardized in the English language by then. Hence these men had a lot of elbow room to print some words in the way they would pronounce them in their native languages.

The printing press then was one of the most powerful medium for transfer of ideas and record keeping. Hence their plunder became widely acceptable!

Let’s take a look at few of these odd words and their correct pronunciation –

(word) (incorrect) (correct)

1. Hyperbole - hyper-bowl (x) Hiper-buhlee

2. Antarctic - Antar-tic (x) Un-Tark-Tic

3. Et cetera - ex-cetera (x) Et cetra

4. Jewellery - Jwel-Lurry (x) Jool-Ree

5. Almond - Aal-Mund (x) Aah-Mund

6. Dessert - Dez-urt (x) Dizz-urt

7. Truth - Tru-th (x) Troo- Th

8. Bowl - Baa-owl (x) Bow-luh

9. Epitome - Eh-pee-Tome (x) Eh-pi-Tummy

10. Pizza - Pee-zah (x) Peet-zuh

11. Monk - Maw-nk (x) Muh-nk

12. Sour - Saar (x) Sower (like power)

13. Salon - Suh-loon (x) Sa (‘a’ as in apple)- Lawn (nasal)

14. Coupon - Coo-pun (x) Coo-pawn

15. Plumber - Plum- Bur (x) Pluh-muh