# Who invented silent letters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 26, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418 "2013-05-26T18:08:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/21 "2013-05-27T00:57:47Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Huh?! Are you sure you aren’t thinking of, perhaps, Chaucer? I found Shakespeare boring when I had to read it, but not hard to understand. > > Chaucer, on the other hand (swiped from Wikipedia)… > ‘Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe > I knowe ynogh, on even and a-morwe,’ > Quod the Marchant, ‘and so doon oother mo > That wedded been.’ This one isn’t so bad, but I’m sure there are worse. _'Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe_ Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow - I knowe ynogh, on even and a-morwe,'\* I know enough in (the) evening and morrow(morning) - Quod the Marchant, 'and so doon oother mo\* Said (quoth) the Merchant and so do other men - That wedded been.\* That have been married (wed). ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/22 "2013-05-27T03:21:11Z")
Why does it matter how the ancient Greeks pronounced it? In writing it is an easy way to figure out the origins of words ph and th and ch were aspirated plosives in ancient Greek ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/23 "2013-05-27T03:31:25Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Is there an actual difference in the sound of “ph,” as opposed to “f”? To our ears they’re identical; do we know how the ancient Greeks pronounced it? In Ancient Greek, [φ] (“phi”) was pronounced as what’s known in phonetics as an [aspirated consonant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant) – a consonant followed by a brief puff of breath. [φ] is thought to have been pretty much pronounced as [p] in English “pie”. Ancient Greek [π], by contrast, is thought to have been pronounced similarly but without aspiration – sounding more like the unaspirated [p] in English “spy”, Spanish “pero”, or French “pain”. By the fourth century B.C., the [φ] of Koine Greek was thought to have changed to a pronunciation similar to English [f]. This pronunciation has continued into the modern day. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/24 "2013-05-27T03:40:08Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > So when writing was first invented, with different symbols created to indicate how each word sounds … You’re starting from a false premise – when writing first came about, its purpose was not to symbolize the sounds of spoken language. Writing started out as a means to record economic transactions. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/25 "2013-05-27T04:40:14Z")
Sometimes a silent letter “comes back to life” in a derived word. For example _solemn --\> solemnity_ ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/26 "2013-05-27T05:31:56Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Standardization appears to be an American innovation, spearheaded by early American lexicographers like Noah Webster. I suspect that doesn’t quite apply to Dutch. The Academy of the Spanish Language was founded in 1713, inspired by the French one that hails from 1635. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/27 "2013-05-27T05:38:43Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Actually, what inspired this question was looking at a map of Polish cities, with names like “Szczecin” and thinking, “Geez, you crazy Poles use way too many consonants! Please, trim a few.” But then I realized we English speakers aren’t much better. Sure, there’s a lot of consonant clusters in Polish, but, unlike English, it’s pretty darned phonetic. Maybe not 100%, but pretty close to it. There’s no “silent” letters in “Szczecin,” unless you count the "z"s as silent, though the function like the “h” in English digraphs like “sh” and “ch.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/28 "2013-05-27T08:01:22Z")
The correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in Polish is excellent, once you’ve learned the rules of how they correspond. They system is a little complicated, but once you’ve learned it, you can know the pronunciation of any word in Polish right away without having to guess or memorize any irregular spellings. If you were to write the sound of Szczecin in English-style orthography, it would come out “Shchetsin,” which, notice, has one more letter than the Polish spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/29 "2013-05-27T08:09:59Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > And do we really need the letter “C”? Sometimes it sounds like an “s”, sometimes a “k”. Absolutely extraneous. OK, fine. No more C. Now how do you spell “church”? 😛 Malay and Indonesian orthography, which was formulated in 1970, is very sensible and economical that way. Wherever there’s an /s/ sound, they just write “s.” For a /k/ sound, they just write “k.” When the sound is /tʃ/ (English “ch” as in “church”), they simply write “c” by itself, since there are no other sounds it can stand for, and they leave out the h, because then it isn’t needed. Since they came up with the orthography so recently, and used professional linguists to do it, there are no silent letters at all, and only two digraphs. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/30 "2013-05-27T08:21:20Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most silent letters were originally pronounced. Over the centuries, that was dropped. Thus “knife” was pronounced (roughly) k-neef-eh. … I just had a eureka moment. Pretty sure the French word “canif” (pocket knife) has the same root. [QUOTE=Senegoid] The French language, in fact, seems to have made an art form of silent letters. It seems that about 1/3 of all letters in the written language are silent in the spoken language. (A friend of mine once snarked that 2/3 of all French words sound alike.) What’s up with _that?_ [/QUOTE] Very elaborate and involved shibboleth. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/31 "2013-05-27T11:38:03Z")
This has been around for years but still makes me smile: The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”. In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/32 "2013-05-27T11:55:20Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > … I just had a eureka moment. Pretty sure the French word “canif” (pocket knife) has the same root. > . Yep. Both come from a similar Germanic word. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/33 "2013-05-27T13:06:05Z")
Sometimes it’s just plain stupidity (masked as intelligence). The “s” in “island” was added when learned numbskulls thought the word derived from Latin words such as “insula” and it got added in. Folk entomologies have had a surprising effect on language. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/34 "2013-05-27T15:16:45Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > If you were to write the sound of Szczecin in English-style orthography, it would come out “Shchetsin,” which, notice, has one more letter than the Polish spelling. Almost. While “c” is normally pronounced as “ts” in Polish, when it is followed by an “i” it “softens” the “c” into a “ch”-type sound, so in English, without using IPA, I’d render it as “shchecheen.” (Whether you render the “i” as an “ee” or an “i” in English is up to you, but, typically, I render the Polish “i” as an “ee” sound in English, and the Polish “y” as an “i” sound in English.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/35 "2013-05-27T15:22:39Z")
Also, an “s” or “z” followed by an “i” in Polish does the same thing, where the “s” and “z” become “sh” and “zh” type sounds. For example, _sikierka_ (“axe”) is pronounce “she-KYER-kah.” _Ciało_ (“body”) is “CHAH-woh.” _Zielony_ (“green”) is “zheh-LOH-nih”. (Non-IPA pronunciations are approximate.) Actually, here’s a good [link to audio examples](http://www.forvo.com/word/szczecin/) of the pronunciation of _Szczecin_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/36 "2013-05-27T15:28:48Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > This has been around for years but still makes me smile: Probably a century. [Teddy Roosevelt Simplifies Spelling](http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/trspelling.htm) in 1906. The English society came two years later, with George Bernard Shaw a major force. The humorists appeared about five minutes later. The story that you found was an adaptation of a [1946 piece by Dalton Williams](http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/meihem.htm) mocking Shaw’s lifelong campaign. ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/37 "2013-05-27T16:49:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Actually, here’s a good [link to audio examples](http://www.forvo.com/word/szczecin/) of the pronunciation of _Szczecin_. How good is the third pronunciation (by ZawiszaCzarny)? It sounds almost like the Slovak pronunciation “Štetín” [ʃceci:n]. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/38 "2013-05-27T21:31:16Z")
> [@AdamF](#): > > How good is the third pronunciation (by ZawiszaCzarny)? It sounds almost like the Slovak pronunciation “Štetín” [ʃceci:n]. I’m not a native Pole, although my parents are and it is technically the first language I learned. To me, it doesn’t sound weird, but my parents are both from the south of Poland. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/39 "2013-05-27T21:33:29Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I should mention that “photo” is derived from a Greek work that began with their “phi”; it was transliterated into “ph” to indicate its origins (and was done by people who knew Greek well). Quite true. Also, there’s no silent letter in “photo” anyway. The _ph_ is a digraph; the two letters together represent a sound that neither indicates alone, like the _ou_ in _out_. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/40 "2013-05-27T22:57:58Z")
Silent letters, like the human appendix, remain as a marker of prior evolution of the written language. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > the two letters together represent a sound that neither indicates alone, like the _ou_ in _out_. …Unless you pronounce “out” with an Atlantic Canadian accent? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418.md?page=3)