Silent Letters

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 . Null is an unpronounced or unwritten segment. The symbol resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø and other symbols.

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 for as in ''sing'', for as in ''thin'' or as in ''then'', diphthongs in ''out'' or 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 in ''enough'' or in ''physical'' instead of . 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 in ''clubbed''; though not geminate consonants, as 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 , , in ''leave'' (''cf. accede''), ''achieve'', ''eulogy'' (''cf. utopia'').
*** The discontiguous digraphs, whose second element is " magic e", e.g. in ''rate'' (cf. ''rat''), in ''fine'' (cf. ''fin''). This is the regular way to represent "long" vowels in the last syllable of a morpheme.
*** Others, such as (which is in effect the "doubled" form of ), as in ''guard'', ''vogue''; as in ''bread'', ''heavy'', etc.; , 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. in ''damn'' (cf. ''damnation''); in ''phlegm'' (cf. ''phlegmatic''); in ''practically'' (cf. ''practical''); in ''ballet'' (cf. ''balletic''). 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., in ''h''onor, in ans''w''er, in Sara''h'', in i''s''land, in su''b''tle. 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 as an "endocentric" digraph for , or view as an empty letter; similarly, with or 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 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 was pronounced 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 and in Latin, but merged to the same in English.
* Clusters of consonants may be simplified, producing silent letters; e.g. silent in ''asthma'', silent in ''Christmas'' (in conservative RP, such as that spoken by Dame Vera Lynn, the is pronounced /krɪstməs/, as opposed to /krɪsməs/ in all other dialects). Similarly, with alien clusters, such as Greek initial in ''psychology'' and 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 in ''debt'' and ''doubt'' (from French ''dette, doute'') was inserted to match Latin cognates like ''debit'' and ''dubitable''. A silent 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 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, is silent in such words as ''hard'', ''feathered''; in ''h''-dropping accents, is silent. A speaker may or may not pronounce in ''often'', the first in ''Antarctic'', 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 is silent in the conjunction ''af''.

The letter is silent in the conjunctions ''og'' and ''også''.

The letter is silent in most dialects if followed by , as in ''hvad'' (‘what’), ''hvem'' (‘who’), ''hvor'' (‘where’).

The letter is silent at the end of words if preceded by , as in ''selv'' ('self'), ''halv'' ('half').

The letter is usually (but not necessarily) silent if preceded by a consonant, as in ''en mand'' (‘a man’), ''blind'' (‘blind’). Many words ending in are pronounced with a stød, but it is still considered a silent letter.

Faroese

The Faroese language has two silent letters.

The letter 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 (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 extremely rare and occur usually in loanwords, rather than German words.

The long sound is sometimes written , with a silent , as in ''Wien'' (' Vienna') or in the verb ending (e.g. ''appellieren, organisieren'').

In some words of foreign origin, the after is pronounced, e.g. ''Ambiente, ''Bakterien'' (plural of ''Bakterium''), Hygiene, Klient'', ''Spermien'' (plural of ''Spermium''), but is silent in e.g. ''Kurier, Papier, Turnier'' and all the ''-ieren'' verbs already mentioned. In ''Zeremonie'', the final is usually silent but always pronounced in its plural form ''Zeremonien''.

Words ending in can be somewhat tricky to learners:

For example, the final is pronounced in the words ''Akazie'', ''Aktie'', ''Aktinie'', ''Begonie'', ''Familie'', ''Folie'', ''Geranie'', ''Grazie'', ''Hortensie'', ''Hostie'', ''Immobilie'', ''Kastanie'', ''Komödie'', ''Kurie'', ''Lilie'', ''Linie'', ''Orgie'', ''Pinie'', ''Serie'', ''Studie'', ''Tragödie'',

while it is silent in the words ''Akademie'', ''Allergie'', ''Amnesie'', ''Amnestie'', ''Apathie'', ''Artillerie'', ''Batterie'', ''Blasphemie'', ''Chemie'', ''Chirurgie'', ''Demokratie'', ''Energie'', ''Epidemie'', ''-gamie'', ''Garantie'', ''Genie'', ''Geometrie'', ''-grafie/-graphie'', ''Harmonie'', ''Hysterie'', ''Infanterie'', ''Ironie'', ''Kavallerie'', ''Knie'', ''Kompanie'', ''Kopi''e, '' -logie'', ''Liturgie'', ''Magie'', ''Manie'', ''Melodie'', ''Monotonie'', ''Nostalgie'', ''Orthopädie'', ''Partie'', ''Phantasie'', ''Philantropie'', ''Philatelie'', ''Philosophie'', ''Poesie'' (but the ''e'' after the ''o'' is pronounced), ''Psychiatrie'', ''Rhapsodie'', ''Sinfonie'', ''-skopie'', ''Theorie'', ''Therapie'', ''Utopie''.

In the female names ''Amalie'', ''Emilie'', ''Otilie'', ''Zäzilie'', the final e is pronounced, but it is silent in ''Leonie'', ''Marie'' (but in compound words such as ''Mari''e''nplatz'' place in Munich ''Marienstatue'' tatue of the Virgin Mary the e is pronounced; the Virgin Mary is called ''Maria'' in German), ''Nat(h)alie'', ''Rosalie'', ''Rosemarie'', ''Stefanie'' (or: ''Stephanie''), ''Valerie''.


The e is pronounced in the names ''Ariel(le)'', ''Daniel'', ''Daniela'', ''Gabriel'', ''Gabriel(l)e'' (in ''Gabriele'', the final e is pronounced), ''Gabriella'', ''Mariele'' (the final e is pronounced), ''Mariella'', ''Muriel'', but it is silent in ''Dieter'', ''Frieda'', ''Friederich'', ''Siegfried'', ''Siegrid'', ''Sieglinde'' (the final e is pronounced), ''Wieland''.


In country names ending in ''-ien'' , the e is pronounced: ''Australien'', ''Brasilien'', ''Indien'', ''Kroatien'', ''Serbien'', ''Slowenien''.
In city names, the pronunciation of ''e'' after ''i'' varies: In ''Wien'' (Vienna), the e is silent, but in ''Triest'', it is pronounced.

A silent ''h'' sometimes indicates vowel length, as in ''Stuhl'' ('chair'), or a hiatus, as in ''drehen'' ('to turn'). That ''h'' derives from an old in some words such as ''sehen'' ('to see') ''zehn'' ('ten'), but in other words, it has no etymological justification such as ''gehen'' ('to go') or ''mahlen'' ('to mill').

Romance languages

French

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

Vowels

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

* The digraph , used to represent before the front vowels and , has a silent . In contrast, the u is pronounced in .
* for has the same silent before and . When the is not silent it must be marked with a trema: . Before and , the is ''not'' silent.

Consonants

* is silent outside of the digraph and loanwords such as ''hat'' or '' hate''. 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 : doubled is always voiceless , while an intervocalic single is voiced .

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

Most final consonants are silent, usual exceptions to be found with the letters , , , and (the English word ''careful'' is mnemonic for this set). But even this rule has its exceptions: final is usually pronounced /e/ (=) rather than the expected /ɛʀ/. Final is silent after even in a diphthong (''œil'', ''appareil'', ''travail''). 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 most often marks a / as hard ( velar), as in ''spaghetti'', where it would otherwise be soft ( palatal), as in ''cello'', because of a following front vowel ( or ). * The digraph , used to represent before the back vowels and , has a silent . In contrast, the i is pronounced in .
* for has the same silent before and . When the is not silent it must be marked with a trema: . Before and , the is ''not'' silent.

Silent 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 is also silent at the beginning of words borrowed from other languages, such as ''hotel''.

Spanish

Despite being rather phonemic, Spanish orthography retains some silent letters:
* is silent outside of the digraph and loanwords such as ''hámster'' or '' hachís''.
* The digraph , used to represent before the front vowels and , has a silent . In contrast, the u is pronounced in .
* for has the same silent before and . When the is not silent it must be marked with a trema: . Before and , the is ''not'' silent.

Greek

In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of words, principally distinguishing (''ó,ti'', "whatever") from (''óti'', "that").Nicolas, Nick.
Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation
". 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.

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 3rd 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''), the noun ''jméno'' ("name") and the 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 �t͡ɕustvəvətʲand "солнце" (solntse) is pronounced �sont͡sə

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.

Semitic languages

In Hebrew, almost all cases of silent letters are silent aleph – א. Many words that have a silent aleph in Hebrew, have an equivalent word in Arabic language, that is written with a mater lectionis alif – ا ; a letter that indicates the long vowel "aa". Examples:
* The Hebrew word for "no" is לֹא (sounds like "lo", spelled like "loa") and the Arabic word for "no" is لاَ (sounds and spelled like "laa").
* The Hebrew word for "left side" is שְׂמֹאל (sounds like "smol", spelled like "smoal") and the Arabic word for "north" is شَمَال (sounds and spelled like "shamaal").
* The Hebrew word for "head" is רֹאשׁ (sounds like "rosh", spelled like "roash") and the Arabic word for "head" is رَأس (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 fulfils 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: اسم (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 שֵׁם (shem). إبن (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 בֵּן (ben), in Maltese ''bin''.
* The alif of the word اَل (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 ال (ʔal, meaning " the"), its lām (the letter L) can also get silent. It gets silent if the noun that word is related to, starts with a "sun letter". A sun letter is a letter that indicates a consonant that is produced by stopping the air in the front part of the mouth (not including the consonant M). The Hebrew equivalent to the Arabic word ال (ʔal, meaning " the") had totally lost its L.

In Maltese għ can be silent e.g. għar - meaning cave - and pronounced "ahr", or a voiced HH if it is followed by the or if it is at the end of a word e.g. qlugħ (q-glottal stop: ).

Uralic languages

The Estonian and Finnish languages use double letters for long vowels and geminate consonants.

Turkish

In the Turkish language, 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.

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 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.

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 (), is used to mark silent letters.

Also, different letters can be used for the same sound (for example, ʰcan 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 (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 (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.

See also

* Apheresis (linguistics)
*Elision
* List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations, many with multiple silent letters.
* 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 source of some common English silent letters.

References

{{Reflist

Spelling
English orthography
Letter