Fun silent letters fact (1 Viewer)

[Ahsoka]

Did you know that in late Middle English and Early Modern English, silent letters were added to some words of Latin origin by scholars basically just to seem fancy? It was usually for words of Latin origin (words that came via Latin and via other languages too, like French), like b in doubt or p in receipt. Returning letters that appeared in Latin, but not French (for those that came to English through French) was bad enough. But sometimes, there were even more victims, such as the case of isle, aisle, and island. Isle did indeed have an s in Latin. Aisle did not, and island was Germanic in origin rather than Latin (and had no s). But because of the similarities in the sound of aisle and island with isle, and the similar meaning for isle and island, scholars just stuck a silent s in them for good measure. I’m sure many people now would happily curse them out

 

[HelloGoodbyeDie]

A fact that I know nothing about

thanks again @Ahsoka

your history skills are prime

 

[StirFriedPanda]

I blame French speakers. they love their stupid silent letters. And Latin and French are bothe love languages.

 

[Ahsoka]

I blame French speakers. they love their stupid silent letters. And Latin and French are bothe love languages.

The ones I’m talking about here are generally cases where the French dropped the letters before they were adopted by English, and English only brought them back by skipping French and going to the Latin root Such as doubt being doute in old French, and debt in old French being dete. Also French wasn’t always so non phonetic, it used to be quite a bit more phonetic. It mostly started to shift to have silent letters right around this same time. French words also became less phonetic because they wanted to imitate Latin roots. So the words with silent letters in English words often arrived to English phonetically, and English altered them to be less phonetic themselves. Though ofc course some originally French words came after, but a large part can’t be blamed on the French.

 

[StirFriedPanda]

The ones I’m talking about here are generally cases where the French dropped the letters before they were adopted by English, and English only brought them back by skipping French and going to the Latin root Such as doubt being doute in old French, and debt in old French being dete. Also French wasn’t always so non phonetic, it used to be quite a bit more phonetic. It mostly started to shift to have silent letters right around this same time. French words also became less phonetic because they wanted to imitate Latin roots. So the words with silent letters in English words often arrived to English phonetically, and English altered them to be less phonetic themselves. Though ofc course some originally French words came after, but a large part can’t be blamed on the French.

Stupid french... French Canadian's are even worse!

 

[uran]

Those damn french

 

[StirFriedPanda]

Those damn french

Don't forget about French Canadians too. even worse!

 

[uran]

Don't forget about French Candains too. even worse!

They wish they were french, tragic