# 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:** 4
**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 29, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/61 "2013-05-29T04:30:01Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yes, they are two different sounds (which is why I refer to them as " ‘ch’-type" sounds instead of just “ch” sounds.) I just didn’t think the distinction was important in trying to explain how it’s approximately pronounced in English, and what the “i” does to a “c,” “s,” or “z,” in Polish orthography. My point was that Polish orthography accurately represents the different sounds in the language, so it’s actually very sensible and useful the way it is, however much monoglot English speakers may complain about it for looking weird to their eyes. You Poles did the very best you could with the Latin alphabet that was so ill-suited to the sounds of your language. It’s a consequence of aligning with the Pope in Rome; along with that comes the Latin alphabet as a package deal, and you’ve made the best of a bum deal, alphabetically speaking. If you’d gone Orthodox instead, you’d have the Cyrillic alphabet to work with, although truth be told it isn’t much better suited to Polish than the Latin one is. ---
**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 29, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/62 "2013-05-29T04:43:18Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > A diphthong, yes - but to my ears, a diphtong is TWO sounds flowing into each other, not “_A_ sound that _neither_ indicates alone” (added emphasis mine). Ah, the eternal metaphysical mystery of unity in plurality and plurality in unity. A diphthong is _a_ combination of _two_ sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/63 "2013-05-29T05:08:49Z")
…and is different from either of those sounds. ---
**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 29, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/64 "2013-05-29T06:03:45Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > My point was that Polish orthography accurately represents the different sounds in the language, so it’s actually very sensible and useful the way it is, however much monoglot English speakers may complain about it for looking weird to their eyes. Absolutely. I agree that it’s a very phonetic language. Not 100%, but pretty damned close. There are some ambiguities from transcribing words into their spellings, but, generally, words are pronounced as they’re written, provided you know the rules. (Like the “i” following “c,” “s,” and “z,” rule mentioned, or a word that ends with “ł” after a consonant devoices it, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/65 "2013-05-30T10:56:01Z")
> [@blood63](#): > > I’m not sure if it has been mentioned but it is worth noting that written words were more or less standardized with the invention of fixed type printing in the 1400’s. While oral language has changed, the spelling of words has remained the same. Not true at all. First, as I pointed out above, the Chancery Standard was the beginning of spelling standardization in English and that pre-dated the printing press by about 30 years. Secondly, while the press did contribute to standardization, it didn’t do it all by itself or immediately. In fact in some ways it probably delayed things, since it introduced more people who influenced spelling. More authors were being published and they all had different spellings of various words, editors may or may not have changed the spelling of a given word and the same for typesetters. Oh, and please no one suggest dictionaries as influencing standardization. The fact is, relatively few people consult dictionaries when spelling. Noah Webster had all kinds of spellings that did not become the standard in his dictionaries. People largely ignored them. His spelling book was much more influential. ---
**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 30, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/66 "2013-05-30T15:06:51Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Oh, and please no one suggest dictionaries as influencing standardization. The fact is, relatively few people consult dictionaries when spelling. Noah Webster had all kinds of spellings that did not become the standard in his dictionaries. People largely ignored them. His spelling book was much more influential. Perhaps the better way to think about it is that dictionaries were part of a larger campaign to standardize spelling. One weapon in the artillery. The combination of dictionaries, spellers, English teachers, and pundits each reinforcing the other and harping on the same issues was successful in creating the notion that inferior spelling meant inferior minds. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/67 "2013-05-30T17:27:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Bear in mind, however, that standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention. As recently as the late 1700’s (late American colonial days), spelling was all over the place. Standardization appears to be an American innovation, spearheaded by early American lexicographers like Noah Webster. Poor old [**Sam Johnson**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language) was but a harmless drudge, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/68 "2013-05-30T18:23:07Z")
I think the conundrum can be summed up thusly: “Silent letters” are what you get when the Roman alphabet is imposed onto the languages spoken by the native Britons they conquered. ---
**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 30, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/69 "2013-05-30T18:30:11Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Poor old [**Sam Johnson**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language) was but a harmless drudge, I guess. From your link: > [@](#): > > Much of his dictionary was prescriptivist, and it was also linguistically conservative, advocating traditional spellings, for example olde, rather than the simplifications that would be favoured 73 years later by Noah Webster. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/70 "2013-05-30T18:34:05Z")
Sure but standardization and simplification are two different things. And, I would ague, the presence of spellings considered ‘traditional’ speaks to an already extant idea of standardization. ---
**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 30, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/71 "2013-05-30T18:43:12Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Sure but standardization and simplification are two different things. And, I would ague, the presence of spellings considered ‘traditional’ speaks to an already extant idea of standardization. Either way, it’s silly and unhistorical to consider Sam Johnson’s dictionary as influential to the state of spelling in his society or later. It was historically important as a dictionary, but that’s not at all the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/72 "2013-05-30T20:32:59Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Either way, it’s silly and unhistorical to consider Sam Johnson’s dictionary as influential to the state of spelling in his society or later. It was historically important as a dictionary, but that’s not at all the same thing. I don’t consider Webster’s color, rather than colour, an earth-shaking advance, nor the substantial loss of meaning in the U.S. between, for example, practise and practice. But, of course, Webster’s purview has always been narrow, along with its rejection of many of his other spelling “reforms.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/73 "2013-05-31T02:40:00Z")
My father was a professor of Education, and specifically, History of Education. I assume some of this tales have some credibility: He claimed that the spelling changes ( colour → color etc.; suffix “ise” → “ize” and others ) arose from a _deliberate_ attempt in early independent United States to “de-British-[del]ise[/del]ize” the new nation. There was a fashion in the early American republic to overtly reject much that was seen as British, the better to establish us as a new independent nation with an independent culture. Tweaking the spelling apparently was part of that fashion. (But if so, the differences between British and American spelling strike me a being few and minor. Why not much more?) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/74 "2013-05-31T03:45:42Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > (But if so, the differences between British and American spelling strike me a being few and minor. Why not much more?) To some extent, because the public didn’t accept many of Webster’s reforms. Webster proposed many more radical changes. From [here:](http://www.bartleby.com/185/32.html) > [@](#): > > Grounding his wholesale reforms upon a saying by Franklin, that “those people spell best who do not know how to spell”—i. e., who spell phonetically and logically—he made an almost complete sweep of whole classes of silent letters—the u in the -our words, the final e in determine and requisite, the silent a in thread, feather and steady, the silent b in thumb, the s in island, the o in leopard, and the redundant consonants in traveler, wagon, jeweler, etc. (English: traveller, waggon, jeweller). More, he lopped the final k from frolick, physick and their analogues. Yet more, he transposed the e and the r in many words ending in re, such as theatre, lustre, centre and calibre. Yet more, he changed the c in all words of the defence class to s. Yet more, he changed ph to f in words of the phantom class, ou to oo in words of the group class, ow to ou in crowd, porpoise to porpess, acre to aker, sew to soe, woe to wo, soot to sut, gaol to jail, and plough to plow. Finally, he antedated the simplified spellers by inventing a long list of boldly phonetic spellings, ranging from tung for tongue to wimmen for women, and from hainous for heinous to cag for keg. As noted further on in the article, Webster himself gave ground on some of his own changes in later editions. American spelling would be far more different from British if all of Webster’s changes had held. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/75 "2013-05-31T03:52:31Z")
In 1906, [Teddy Roosevelt also attempted to promote spelling reform](http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/trspelling.htm) proposed by the [Simplified Spelling Board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board), but was thwarted by backlash from the publick;) and Congress. ---
**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 31, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/76 "2013-05-31T15:58:09Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In 1906, [Teddy Roosevelt also attempted to promote spelling reform](http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/trspelling.htm) proposed by the [Simplified Spelling Board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board), but was thwarted by backlash from the publick;) and Congress. I gave that exact link in post #35. Et tu, Colibri? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/77 "2013-05-31T16:04:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I gave that exact link in post #35. Et tu, Colibri? Hey, I sometimes have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast, let alone what was posted five days ago.😉 In my defense, I provided additional information. ---
**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 31, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/78 "2013-05-31T16:35:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Hey, I sometimes have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast, let alone what was posted five days ago.😉 In my defense, I provided additional information. Four days, but who’s counting? 🙂 That would be 0.97 centihours for those playing in the [metric thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=692497). ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/79 "2013-05-31T18:10:32Z")
The way Hmong is written uses silent letters in a fairly unique way. Hmong has seven tones which, for obvious reasons, are difficult to convey using the roman alphabet. When the language’s orthography was developed in the 50’s, the developers took “unused” consonants (unused in the sense that they do not occur in Hmong phonology) and assigned each one a tone and then tacked them on to the end of words to indicate the proper tone. So the word “Hmong” when written in Hmong is spelled _Hmoob_ where the final “b” only indicates that the word is pronounced with a high-falling tone. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418/80 "2013-06-01T00:47:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Four days, but who’s counting? 🙂 > > That would be 0.97 centihours for those playing in the [metric thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=692497). Did your numerators and denominators go upsydaisium? I think you meant 0.96 hectohours. 0.97 centihours is 58 minutes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-invented-silent-letters/659418.md?page=5)