Silent letter

Template:Short description Template:IPA notice In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign Template:Unichar, which resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø. A null or zero is an unpronounced or unwritten segment.

English

One of the noted difficulties of English spelling is a high number of silent letters. Edward Carney distinguishes different kinds of "silent" letters, which present differing degrees of difficulty to readers.

• Auxiliary letters which, with another letter, constitute digraphs; i.e., two letters combined which represent a single phoneme. These may further be categorized as:
  • "Exocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is different from that of either of its constituent letters. These are rarely considered "silent". Examples:
    • Where the phoneme has no standard single-letter representation, as with consonants Template:Angbr for as in sing, Template:Angbr for as in thin or as in then, or diphthongs Template:Angbr in out or Template:Angbr in point. These are the default spellings for the relevant sounds and present no special difficulty for readers or writers.
    • Where standard single-letter representation uses another letter, as with Template:Angbr in enough or Template:Angbr in physical instead of Template:Angbr. These may be considered irregular for writers, but less difficult for readers.
  • "Endocentric" digraphs, where the sound of the digraph is the same as that of one of its constituent letters. These include:
    • Most double consonants, as Template:Angbr in clubbed; though not geminate consonants, as Template:Angbr in misspell. Doubling due to suffixation or inflection is regular; otherwise, it may present difficulty to writers (e.g., accommodate is often misspelled), but not to readers.
    • Many vowel digraphs, as Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr in leave (cf. accede), achieve, eulogy (cf. utopia).
    • The discontiguous digraphs, whose second element is "magic e"; e.g., Template:Angbr in rate (cf. rat), Template:Angbr in fine (cf. fin). This is the regular way to represent "long" vowels in the last syllable of a morpheme.
    • Others, such as Template:Angbr (which is in effect the "doubled" form of Template:Angbr), Template:Angbr as in guard, vogue; Template:Angbr as in bread, heavy, etc.; Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr as in aerial, oedipal. These may be difficult for writers and sometimes also for readers.
• Dummy letters with no relation to neighboring letters and no correspondence in pronunciation:
  • Some are inert letters, which are sounded in a cognate word; e.g., Template:Angbr in damn (cf. damnation); Template:Angbr in phlegm (cf. phlegmatic); Template:Angbr in practically (cf. practical); Template:Angbr in ballet (cf. balletic); Template:Angbr in subtle (cf. subtility). If the cognate is obvious, it may aid writers in spelling, but mislead readers in pronunciation.
  • The rest are empty letters, which never have a sound; e.g., Template:Angbr in doubt, Template:Angbr in honor, Template:Angbr in answer, Template:Angbr in Sarah, Template:Angbr in island. These may present the greatest difficulty to writers and often to readers, as well.

The distinction between "endocentric" digraphs and empty letters is somewhat arbitrary. For example, in such words as little and bottle, one might view Template:Angbr as an "endocentric" digraph for , or view Template:Angbr as an empty letter; similarly, with Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr in buy and build.

Not all silent letters are completely redundant:

• Silent letters can distinguish between homophones; e.g., in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words.
• Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word; e.g., vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would.
• Silent letters may help the reader to stress the correct syllable (compare physics to physiques). The final Template:Angbr in giraffe gives a clue to the second-syllable stress, where *giraf might suggest initial-stress.

Silent letters arise in several ways:

• Sound changes occurring without a spelling change. The digraph Template:Angbr was pronounced Template:IPAblink in Middle English in such words as light.
• Sound distinctions from foreign languages may be lost, as with the distinction between smooth rho (ρ) and roughly aspirated rho (ῥ) in Ancient Greek, represented by Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr in Latin, but merged to the same in English.
• Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters; e.g., silent Template:Angbr in asthma, silent Template:Angbr in Christmas (in conservative RP, it is pronounced /krɪstməs/, as opposed to /krɪsməs/ in all other dialects). Similarly, with alien clusters, such as Greek initial Template:Angbr in psychology and Template:Angbr in mnemonic, and the much rarer clusters in chthonic and phthalate.
• Compound words are often simplified in pronunciation, while their spelling remains the same. For example, cupboard and breakfast were once pronounced as written, but were then simplified over time. The words forehead and waistcoat have largely reverted to their spelling pronunciations, but were once pronounced *forrid and *weskit, respectively.
• Occasionally, spurious letters are consciously inserted in spelling to reflect etymology (real or imagined). The Template:Angbr in debt and doubt (from French dette, doute) was inserted to match Latin cognates like debit and dubitable. A silent Template:Angbr was inserted in isle (Norman French ile, Old French isle, from Latin insula; cognate to isolate) and then extended to the unrelated word island. The Template:Angbr in ptarmigan was apparently suggested by Greek words such as pteron ('wing').

Since accent and pronunciation differ, letters may be silent for some speakers, but not others. In non-rhotic accents, Template:Angbr is silent in such words as hard, feathered; in h-dropping accents, Template:Angbr is silent. A speaker may or may not pronounce Template:Angbr in often, the first Template:Angbr in Antarctic, Template:Angbr in sandwich, etc.

Differences between British English and American English

Pronunciation

In the US, the h in herb is silent (an herb), but in the UK, it is pronounced (a herb). The same is true for the l in solder.

In parts of the UK, the a in dictionary and secretary is silent, but in the US, it is pronounced.

Spelling

In US spellings, silent letters are sometimes omitted (e.g., acknowledgment / UK acknowledgement, ax / UK axe, catalog / UK catalogue, program / UK programme outside computer contexts), but not always (e.g., dialogue is the standard spelling in the US and the UK; dialog is regarded as a US variant; the spelling axe is also often used in the US). In most words, silent letters are written in both styles (e.g., debt, guard, house).

Other Germanic languages

Danish

The Danish language has different letters that can be silent:

• The letter Template:Angbr is silent in the preposition af ('by, of, from, off, with, out of').
• The letter Template:Angbr is silent in the conjunction og ('and') and adverb også ('also').
• The letter Template:Angbr is silent in most dialects if followed by Template:Angbr, as in the pronouns hvad ('what'), hvem ('who'), hvor ('where').
• The letter Template:Angbr is silent at the end of words if preceded by Template:Angbr, as in the pronoun selv ('self') and adjective halv ('half').
• The letter Template:Angbr is usually (but not necessarily) silent if preceded by a consonant, as in en mand ('a man') and blind ('blind'). Many words ending in Template:Angbr are pronounced with a stød, but it is still considered a silent letter.

Faroese

The Faroese language has two silent letters.

The letter Template:Angbr is almost always silent. It is rendered in orthography for historical reasons (e.g., 'father' , cf. Old Norse ). In some cases, however, the letter is pronounced , as in 'the weather' .

The letter Template:Angbr (i.e. continuant of Old Norse ) is usually silent between vowels or when following a vowel before a pause (e.g., 'day' , cf. Old Norse ; 'I' , cf. Old Norse ). Use of the silent letter in Faroese is the same as for the letter edd; it is written for historical reasons as Faroese orthography was based on normalised spelling of Old Norse and Icelandic language.

Both Faroese silent letters and are replaced by a hiatus glide consonant (, or ) when followed by another (unstressed) vowel.

German

In German, silent letters are rare apart from word-internal Template:Angle bracket (following a vowel) and the Template:Angle bracket in the digraph Template:Angle bracket.

Template:Angle bracket

Silent h is used in German to indicate vowel length or hiatus. This h is almost regularly added at the end of inflectable word stems, e.g. Kuh (cow), Stroh (straw), drehen (to turn, stem dreh-). There is only a fairly small number of exceptions to this, mostly nouns in -ee or -ie (see below), apart from isolated cases such as säen (to sow).

Otherwise silent h may be written before the letters l, m, n, r as in nehmen (to take), Stuhl (chair), Zahn (tooth). This latter use is highly irregular, however, and there are just as many words where the h is missing.

Historically, this use of silent h goes back to the Middle High German consonant , which became silent in words like sehen (to see), zehn (ten). By analogy it was then also used in words that had no such h in Middle High German. The majority of silent hTemplate:'s in modern German are analogical rather than etymological.

Template:Angle bracket

The long i-sound Template:IPAslink is usually written Template:Angle bracket, with a silent Template:Angle bracket, as in viel (much), spielen (to play), Wien ('Vienna'), and hundreds of other words.

In native German words this spelling is fairly unambiguous. Some words of foreign origin also behave like native words; e.g., Kurier, Papier, Turnier and all verbs ending in Template:Angle bracket (e.g. appellieren, organisieren). In other foreign words, however, the Template:Angle bracket after Template:Angle bracket may be pronounced (e.g., Ambiente, Hygiene, Klient), or names like Daniela, Gabriel, and Triest.

Words ending in Template:Angle bracket can be particularly tricky to learners: There are generally two possibilities:

1. When the final Template:Angle bracket is stressed, it represents long as in Zeremonie . Some other words with Template:Angle bracket pronounced this way include Akademie, Allergie, Amnesie, Amnestie, Apathie, Artillerie, Batterie, Blasphemie, Chemie, Chirurgie, Demokratie, Energie, Epidemie, -gamie, Garantie, Genie, Geometrie, -grafie/-graphie, Harmonie, Hysterie, Infanterie, Ironie, Kavallerie, Kompanie, Kopie, -logie, Liturgie, Magie, Manie, Marie, Melodie, Monotonie, Nostalgie, Orthopädie, Partie, Phantasie, Philosophie, Poesie, Psychiatrie, Rhapsodie, Sinfonie, -skopie, Theorie, Therapie, and Utopie.
2. When the preceding vowel is stressed, Template:Angle bracket represents the separate vowels as in Folie . Some other words with Template:Angle bracket pronounced this way include Akazie, Aktie, Amalie, Begonie, Emilie, Familie, Folie, Geranie, Grazie, Hortensie, Hostie, Immobilie, Kastanie, Komödie, Kurie, Lilie, Linie, Orgie, Otilie, Pinie, Serie, Studie, Tragödie, and Zäzilie.
3. In female names, there is a third category of words stressed on the antepenult, where Template:Angle bracket also represents ; e.g., Amelie, Leonie, Nathalie, Rosalie, Stefanie, Valerie (all stressed on the first syllable).

A special case arises when the Template:Angle bracket after Template:Angle bracket is a grammatical ending; in this case, it is always pronounced. Therefore, Zeremonie becomes Zeremonien in the plural, and the same is true of all other nouns in group 1 above. The noun Knie is pronounced when it is singular, but usually when it is plural. Spermien is plural of Spermium, hence also with a pronounced Template:Angle bracket. Country names in -ien can also be joined to this group: Australien, Brasilien, Indien, Kroatien, Serbien, Slowenien.

Other letters

Other silent letters occur mainly in borrowings from French and other modern languages; e.g., Porträt (portrait), Korps (corps).

Informally, the letter Template:Angle bracket may be silent in function words like ist (is), jetzt (now), nicht (not), and otherwise in clusters like Gedächtnis (memory), Kunststück (piece of art). These tTemplate:'s are commonly silent in everyday speech, but will be retained in careful, formal parlance.

Romance languages

French

Silent letters are common in French, including the last letter of most words. Ignoring auxiliary letters that create digraphs (such as Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr, as well as Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr as signals for nasalized vowels), they include almost every possible letter except Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr.

Vowels

Final Template:Angbr is silent or at least (in poetry and song) a nearly-silent schwa ; it allows the preservation of a preceding consonant, often allowing the preservation of a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine forms in writing; e.g., in vert and verte (both 'green'); the Template:Angbr is pronounced in the latter (feminine) but not the former. Furthermore, the schwa can prevent an awkward ending of a word ending in a consonant and a liquid (peuple, sucre).

After Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, or Template:Angbr, a final Template:Angbr is silent. The spelling Template:Angbr is pronounced just the same as that for Template:Angbr and is entirely an etymological distinction, so in that context, the Template:Angbr is silent.

The digraph Template:Angbr for usually has a silent Template:Angbr, as in quand ('when'), quel ('which'), acquérir ('to acquire'), and quotidien ('daily'). Template:Angbr for has the same silent Template:Angbr; when the Template:Angbr is not silent, it is usually marked with a trema: Template:Angbr.

Consonants

Template:Angbr is silent outside of the digraph Template:Angbr. Numerous doubled consonants exist; French does not distinguish doubled consonants from single consonants in pronunciation as Italian does. A marked distinction exists between a single and doubled Template:Angbr: doubled Template:Angbr is always voiceless Template:IPAblink, while an intervocalic single Template:Angbr is usually voiced Template:IPAblink.

The nasal consonants Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr when final or preceding a consonant ordinarily nasalize a preceding vowel but are not themselves pronounced (faim, tomber, vin, vendre). Initial and intervocalic Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, even before a final silent Template:Angbr, are pronounced: aimer, jaune.

Most final consonants are silent, except in most cases with the letters Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr (the English word careful is a mnemonic for this set). But even this rule has its exceptions: final morphemic Template:Angbr is usually pronounced /e/ (=Template:Angbr) rather than the expected /ɛʁ/ (as in hiver, which does not have that morpheme). Final Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr is silent after Template:Angbr even in a diphthong (œil, appareil, travail, bouillir). Final -ent is silent as a third-person plural verb ending, though it is pronounced in other cases.

Final consonants that might be silent in other contexts (finally or before another consonant) may seem to reappear in pronunciation in liaison: ils ont "they have", as opposed to ils sont "they are"; liaison is the retention (between words in certain syntactic relationships) of a historical sound otherwise lost, and often has grammatical or lexical significance.

Italian

The letter Template:Angbr most often marks a Template:Angbr/Template:Angbr as hard (velar), as in spaghetti and scherzo, where it would otherwise be soft (palatal), as in gelato and violoncello, because of a following front vowel (Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr).

Conversely, to soften Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr (to or respectively) before a back vowel (Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr), a silent Template:Angbr is inserted: Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, etc. When Template:Angbr in that position is not silent, it can be marked with a grave accent: Template:Angbr. Before any other letter, or at the end of a word, the Template:Angbr is not silent.

Silent Template:Angbr is also used in forms of the verb avere ('have') – ho, hai and hanno – to distinguish these from their homophones o ('or'), ai ('to the') and anno ('year'). The letter Template:Angbr is also silent at the beginning of words borrowed from other languages, such as hotel.

Portuguese

European Portuguese's orthography used to conserve the etymological silent letters Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr when they appeared after a vowel and before the consonants Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or soft Template:Angbr. Their purpose was to prevent the preceding vowel's deafening, compare adoptar (adopt), contracção (contraction) and inspeccionar (inspect) to adjacente (adjacent), completar (complete) and noção (noction). However, the latest Portuguese orthographic reform removed them from the language entirely, meaning that enlarged vowels and deafened vowels cannot be distinguished solely by spelling anymore, the main reason for this change was that Brazilian Portuguese's spelling had already stopped writing these mute consonants, and thus they were a figure of divergence between the two countries' way of writing.

Current Portuguese still has some mute letters:

Vowels

The Template:Angbr in the digraph Template:Angbr is not pronounced before Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, it is there because a single Template:Angbr before these vowels becomes a . There are exceptions to this rule, though, like the words aguentar and arguição.

The Template:Angbr in the digraph Template:Angbr, the latter is pronounced as or as , is not pronounced before Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, it is the only traditional way of putting a sound before these letters, as the letter Template:Angbr softens to and Template:Angbr is reserved to loanwords. There are exceptions to this rule, though, like the words eloquente and tranquilo.

The Template:Angbr in the diphthong Template:Angbr is not generally pronounced in Standard Lisbon Portuguese and some Brazilian dialects, which results in words like Sousa and Gouveia being said as "Sosa" and "Goveia" respectively.

Consonants

Template:Angbr is always silent at the beginning and at the ending of words (hoje, hora, ah!, etc.), except in loanwords such as hobby. However, Template:Angbr is present in three digraphs and one trigraph (ch, lh, nh and tch), which is where this letter is mainly found affecting the word's pronunciation.

Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are nasal consonants, when at the end of a word or behind another consonant, they nasalize the preceding vowel, with this being the most common way of encountering nasal vowels in Portuguese, the other being with the tilde. They are not interchangeable, though, Template:Angbr is only used before Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr (embora, império, etc.) while Template:Angbr is used everywhere else (canto, circunstância, convencer, ênfase, fundo, lançar, etc.). Other difference between these two letters is that paroxytones ending with an Template:Angbr are not accentuated while oxytones have to be accented, (coragem, também, etc.), but the opposite happens with Template:Angbr (pólen, nenen, etc.), all proparoxytones are accentuated in Portuguese.

Template:Angbr is normally deemed as silent when behind a soft Template:Angbr or the letter Template:Angbr, like in the words excelência, excisar or exsudar, but some people consider Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr to just be digraphs.

There is an extremely specific and limited group of words whose mute consonants can currently be preserved, but only when they occur at the end of them, these are onomastic forms in which the usage has consecrated them, namely anthroponyms and toponyms of biblical tradition like Jacob, Job, Isaac, David, Gad, Gog, Magog and Josafat. Some others names, like Madrid, Valhadolid, Calecut and Calicut also apply to this rule. Although, all of the anthroponyms cited here can also be optionally written without them: Jacó, Jó, Davi, etc.

Spanish

Despite being rather phonemic, Spanish orthography retains some silent letters:

• Template:Angbr is silent outside of the digraph Template:Angbr and loanwords such as hámster or hachís.
• The digraph Template:Angbr, used to represent Template:IPAblink before the front vowels Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, has a silent Template:Angbr. In contrast, the u is pronounced in Template:Angbr.
• Template:Angbr for has the same silent Template:Angbr before Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr. When the Template:Angbr is not silent, it must be marked with a trema: Template:Angbr. Before Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, the Template:Angbr is not silent.
• Syllable onsets like Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr are usually pronounced without p. In some but not all cases, this is reflected in the orthography that allows double forms with and without Template:Angbr: ("tire"), / ("psychology"), / ("pterodactyl"). Reducing an internal Template:Angbr ( instead of , "concept") is not recommended except in ("September") and / ("seventh").
• An internal Template:Angbr may be pronounced with a silent Template:Angbr. In some cases, this is considered vulgar; in others, it is the most common pronunciation and reflected in the orthography: ("substance").
• Intervocalic or final Template:Angbr can be weakly pronounced or silent depending on formality and dialect, or in relaxed speech: Template:IPAc-es, Template:IPAc-es ("tired").

Greek

In Greek, the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of words, principally distinguishing (ó,ti, "whatever") from (óti, "that").

Slavic languages

Czech

In the vast majority of cases, Czech pronunciation follows the spelling. There are only four exceptions:

D

For example: dcera (daughter) and in srdce (heart)

/j/ + consonant clusters in some words

In most present forms of the verb být ("to be"), namely jsem, jsi, jsme, jste and jsou (i.e., all persons but the third-person singular je), the initial cluster /js/ is regularly simplified to a mere /s/. This pronunciation is considered correct and neutral when the verb is unstressed and used as an auxiliary. When stressed or used lexically, only the full /js/ pronunciation is considered correct. In casual speech, however, a few other highly frequent words commonly undergo similar simplification, namely all present forms of jít ("to walk") beginning with /jd/ (that is jdu, jdeš, jde, jdeme, jdete, jdou), and the noun jméno ("name") (as well as the derived verb jmenovat (se) 'to name, to (be) call(ed)').

Russian

Several words in Russian omit written consonants when spoken. For example, "чувствовать" (chuvstvovat') is pronounced [ˈt͡ɕustvəvətʲ] and "солнце" (solntse) is pronounced [ˈsont͡sə].

Russian letter ъ has no phonetic value and functions as a separation sign. Before the spelling reform of 1918, this hard sign was written at the end of each word when following a non-palatal consonant.

Ukrainian

Some three-consonant sequences in Ukrainian omit the second sound; for example, (šistnadcjatj) is pronounced without the first t.

Semitic languages

File:00-Alif-Wasla.png

The silent Arabic alif is marked with a wasla sign above it

In Hebrew, almost all cases of silent letters are silent aleph (Template:Script/Hebr). Many words that have a silent aleph in Hebrew have an equivalent word in the Arabic language, that is written with a mater lectionis alif (Template:Script/Arabic), a letter that indicates the long vowel "aa". Examples:

• The Hebrew word for "no" is (sounds like "lo", spelled like "loa") and the Arabic word for "no" is (sounds and spelled like "laa").
• The Hebrew word for "left side" is (sounds like "smol", spelled like "smoal") and an Arabic word for "left side" is (sounds and spelled like "shimaal").
• The Hebrew word for "head" is (sounds like "rosh", spelled like "roash") and the Arabic word for "head" is (sounds and spelled like "ra's").

The explanation for this phenomenon is that the Hebrew language had a sound change of all the mater lectionis aleph letters into silent ones (see Canaanite shift). Due to that sound change, in Hebrew language, there are only two kinds of aleph - the glottal stop (/ʔ/) and the silent one, while in Arabic language all three kinds still exist.

The silent Arabic alif is marked with a wasla sign above it (see picture), in order to differentiate it from the other kinds of alifs. An Arabic alif turns silent, if it fulfills three conditions: it must be in a beginning of a word, the word must not be the first one of the sentence, and the word must belong to one of the following groups:

• Verbs that start with the prefix "ʔi-", due to their conjugation and derived stem.
• Ten specific nouns that begin with "ʔ": اسم, است, ابن/ابنة, اثنان/اثنتان, امرؤ/امرأة, اَيمن الله/اَيْم الله. Some of these words have a Hebrew word equivalent, and that equivalent had totally lost the beginning aleph. Examples: (ʔism), meaning "a name" (in Maltese the word isem), sounds like "ism" if it is in the beginning of the sentence and "sm" if not; its Hebrew equivalent is (shem). (ʔibn) (in Maltese, the word iben), meaning "a son", sounds like "ibn" if it is in the beginning of the sentence and "bn" if not; its Hebrew equivalent is (ben), in Maltese bin.
• The alif of the word (ʔal), meaning "the", sounds like "al" if it is in the beginning of the sentence and "l" if not.

Besides the alif of the Arabic word (ʔal, meaning "the"), its lām (the letter L) can also be silent. It becomes silent if the noun that word is related to starts with a "sun letter". A sun letter is a letter that indicates a consonant produced by stopping the air in the front part of the mouth (not including the consonant M). The Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic word (ʔal, meaning "the") had totally lost its L.

In Maltese, għ can be silent (e.g., għar 'cave', pronounced "ahr"), or /ħ/ if it is at the end of a word (e.g., qlugħ 'sail').

Turkish

In the Turkish language, Template:Angbr often has no sound of its own, but lengthens the preceding vowel, for example in dağ ("mountain") . In other surroundings, it may be pronounced as a glide.

Persian

In Persian, there are two instances of silent letters:

• The letter he after a short vowel, unless in a monosyllabic word, has no sound of its own. It is only written because according to spelling rules a word cannot end in a short vowel.
• The Silent Vav is always written but not spoken in Standard Persian. It used to represent the labialization of the voiceless velar fricative, which no longer exists in the standard dialect, making it an archaic remnant of the old standards of pronunciation.

Indic languages

Unconventional to Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European root languages, some Indic languages have silent letters. Among Dravidian languages, Tamil and Malayalam have certain distinct styles of keeping few of their letters silent. Among the Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali language has silent letters.

Tamil

Tamil is a classical language phonetically characterized by allophones, approximants, nasals and glottalised sounds. Some words, however, have silent letters in them. The words அஃது (while that is), and அஃதன் (that) contain the Āytam or '', which is not pronounced in Modern Tamil. It is explained in the Tolkāppiyam that āytam could have glottalised the sounds it was combined with, though some may argue it sounded more like the Arabic '' (). That being said, modern words like ஆஃபிஸ் (Office) use '' and '' in sequence to represent the Template:IPAc-en sound, as the āytam is nowadays also used to transcribe it and other foreign phonemes.

Another convention in Middle Tamil (Sen-Tamil) is the use of silent vowels to address a mark of respect when beginning proper nouns. The Ramayana was one such text where the word Ramayana in Tamil always began with '', as in இராமாயணம் (), though it was not pronounced. The name கோபாலன் () was so written as உகோபாலன் prefixed with an ''.

Malayalam

Inheriting elision, approximants and allophones from Tamil, in Malayalam, except for Sanskrit words, words ending in the vowel '' () become silent at the end and if not compounded with words succeeding them, replace the '' vowel by the schwa . However, it is considered disrespectful to change this pronunciation in the simple present verbs, when using imperatives and using what can be termed as Imperative-Active voice in Malayalam, where the second person is respectfully addressed with his or her name instead of നീ (, you) or നിങ്ങൽ (, yourselves). For example, in the sentence, രാകേശ് പണി തീർക്കു (, Rakesh, finish your work), the use of the second personal pronoun is avoided with the name രാകേശ് (, Rakesh), but this sentence sounds less respectful if the '' in തീർക്കു (, finish} is replaced by the schwa or , as in "തീർക്കു!" (, Finish!) which sounds like an order. Notice the at the end of the name Rakesh which is pronounced after being added to the Sanskritic name.

Bengali

Unlike other Indic languages, Bengali features silent consonants, which occur in many consonant clusters. These silent letters usually occur in loanwords borrowed from Sanskrit. These silent letters occur due to sound mergers as the spellings of Sanskrit loanwords have been preserved but their pronunciation has changed with sound mergers.

The letter ব ('b') is silent in most of the consonant clusters where it occurs as the second one. For example, স্বপ্ন (স্ব = স্ 'sh' + ব) (dream) is written as "shbôpno" but pronounced as "shôpno". জ্বর (জ্ব = জ্ 'j' + ব) (fever) is written as "jbôr" but pronounced as "jôr". This is the case with consonant clusters at the beginning of the words. If the consonant cluster occurs in the middle or at the end of a word, the ব serves as a marker to put stress on the first consonant in a consonant cluster. For example, বিশ্বাস (শ্ব = শ্ 'sh' + ব) (to believe) is written as " bishbāsh" but pronounced as " bishāsh" with more stress on the sh than usual, which sounds like "bishshāsh".

The letter ম ('m') also remains silent in many initial consonant clusters. For example, "স্মৃতি" (স্মৃ = স্ 's' + ম + ঋ 'ri') (memory) is written as "smriti" but pronounced as "sriti". In many cases, if the consonant cluster occurs in the middle of a word, then the preceding vowel should be nasalised and the first letter in the cluster is stressed and ম in the cluster is silent. For example, আত্মা (ত্মা = ত্ 't' + মা 'mā'), i.e., "ātmā" (soul), is pronounced as "āttā" and the ā is nasalised.

The letter য় ('y') is also silent in many cases as in "মেয়ে" (য়ে = য় + এ 'ē') (girl) is written as "mēyē" but pronounced as "mē".

The letter 'য' ('j') in its consonant clusters changes the pronunciation of the other letters in the cluster. For example, ন্যায় (ন্যা = ন 'n'+ য + আ 'ā') (justice) is written as "njāy" but pronounced as "nay" (a as in hat); কন্যা (girl or daughter) is written as "konjā" but pronounced as "konnā". Sometimes it is completely silent as in সন্ধ্যা (ন্ধ্যা = ন্ 'n' + ধ 'dh' + য + আ 'ā') (evening) is written as "shondhjā" but pronounced as "shondhā".

Moreover, Bengali also features schwa deletion common to other Indo-Aryan languages, where the schwa, 'o' or 'ô' is omitted while pronunciation, for example, কাকতলা (incident) is written as "kākotôlā" but pronounced as "kāktôlā".

Similarly, in many other consonant clusters, the second consonant is silent.

Zhuang-Tai languages

Thai

Thai has a deep orthography like English and French. Unlike the two languages, however, the Thai script is an abugida rather than a true alphabet. Nonetheless, silent consonants, vowels, and even syllables are common in Thai. Thai has many loanwords from Sanskrit and Pali, and rather than spell aforementioned words according to Thai phonics, the script tends to maintain the etymological spellings. For example, a romanization of the word ประโยชน์ that reflects Thai orthography is , but it would be pronounced as , where the extra letter for -n is completely silent. Another example is the Thai word มนตร์, which is sometimes written as mantra like it would be in Sanskrit, but it is only pronounced in Thai. Though the second syllable is pronounced in Sanskrit, it is completely absent when pronouncing the word in Thai. In such words, the diacritic , known as (Template:Langx), is used to mark silent letters.

Also, different letters can be used for the same sound (for example, [tʰ] can be spelled as , , , , , or ) depending on which class the consonant is, which is important for knowing which tone the syllable will have, and whether or not it is a loanword from Sanskrit or Pali. However, some letters written before low class consonants become silent and turn the low class syllable into a high class one. For example, even though the high class letter is used to write the sound /h/, if the letter comes before a low class letter in a syllable, the letter will become , which will make the letter silent and it will turn the syllable into a high class syllable. For example, the word is a low class syllable because its initial consonant is a low class consonant. The syllable is pronounced Template:Ipa (with a long vowel and mid tone) and it means "field". However, the word is a high class syllable, despite it containing a low class consonant in the onset. The syllable is pronounced Template:Ipa (with a long vowel and a rising tone) and it means "thick".

Lao

Like Thai, Lao also has a letter that becomes silent if it comes before a low class consonant. The letter is ho sung ຫ, which would represent the sound /h/ if it were not paired with another low class consonant. However, unlike Thai, the digraphs beginning with the aforementioned letter can sometimes be written as a ligature.

Zhuang

In the standard Zhuang language, written in the Latin script, the last letter of every syllable is typically silent due to it representing the tone of the syllable. The digraphs mb and nd also have silent letters, representing the phonemes ɓ and ɗ respectively.

Korean

In the Hangul Orthography of the Korean language, the letter ⟨ㅇ⟩ is silent when written in the syllable-initial position, and represents the sound /ŋ/ when written in the syllable-final position. For example, in the word 안녕 (Yale Romanization: ) (meaning "hello"), composed of the letters "ㅇㅏㄴㄴㅕㅇ", the first ⟨ㅇ⟩ is silent, and the last ⟨ㅇ⟩ is pronounced as /ŋ/. The reason for this can be found in 15th-century Hangul orthography. In the 15th century, the letter ⟨ㅇ⟩ originally represented /∅~ɣ/ (a lenited form of ㄱ /k/), while the letter ⟨ㆁ⟩ unconditionally represented /ŋ/. But because in Middle Korean phonology, ⟨ㆁ⟩ was not allowed in syllable-initial position, and ⟨ㅇ⟩ was not allowed in syllable-final position, it formed a complementary distribution of the two letters. Because of this and due to the fact that the letters look very much alike, the two letters merged.

Korean's syllable structure is CGVC, and Korean's writing system, Hangul, reflects this structure. The only possible consonant cluster in a single syllable must contain a glide and they must occur in the onset. However, sometimes a cluster of two consonants are written after the vowel in a syllable. In such situations, if the next syllable begins with a vowel sound, then the second consonant becomes the first sound of the next syllable. However, if the next syllable begins with a consonant sound, then one of the consonants in the cluster will be silent (sometimes causing fortition in the following consonant). For example, the word 얇다 (meaning "thin") is written as (Yale: yalp.ta), but the word is pronounced as if it was written yal.tta because the second syllable begins with a consonant sound. However, the word 얇아서 (also meaning "thin") is written as (Yale: yalp.a.se) and it is pronounced as yal.pa.se because the second syllable begins with a vowel sound.

Mongolian

Interestingly, the native Mongolian script has much more orthographic depth than Mongolian Cyrillic. For example, the letter Gh or γ (ᠭ) is silent if it is between two of the same vowel letters. In that case, the silent consonant letter combines to two written vowel into one long vowel. For example, the Mongolian word Qaγan (ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ) should be pronounced Qaan (ᠬᠠᠠᠨ). In Mongolian Cyrillic, however, it is spelled хаан (haan), closer to the actual pronunciation of the word. Words in the Mongolian script can also have silent vowels as well. For Mongolian name of the city Hohhot, it is spelled Kökeqota (ᠬᠥᠬᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ) in Mongolian script, but in Cyrillic, it is spelled Хөх хот (Höh hot), closer towards the actual pronunciation of the word.

Basque

In Basque, during the 20th century Template:Angbr was not used in the orthography of the Basque dialects in Spain but it marked an aspiration in the North-Eastern dialects. During the standardization of Basque in the 1970s, the compromise was reached that Template:Angbr would be accepted if it were the first consonant in a syllable. Hence, ("people") and ("to come") were accepted instead of (Biscayan) and (Souletin). Speakers could pronounce the h or not. For the dialects lacking the aspiration, this meant a complication added to the standardized spelling.

See also

• Apheresis (linguistics)
• Elision
• Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages, explains rules of Modern Indo-Aryan languages that delete the schwa sound.
• Silent e
• Silent k
• Syncope (phonology)
• Three-letter rule, the source of some common English silent letters.