1. Silent Letters in English
Hi, my name is Julie Peters. Today I will be presenting on Silent Letters in English.

2. What are silent letters?
Silent letters are letters that appear in the spelling of words, but don’t make a sound.
They look one way but sound a different way.

3. So how many English words have silent letters?
“According to Kent Jones, Education Committee, Esperanto Society of Chicago, ‘More than 60% of (English) words have silent letters.’”
British Council (n.d.)

4. What caused English to have so many silent letters?
Historical change
Letters added to make the spelling look Latin or French
Borrowed words from other languages
Sound combinations too difficult to say
Historical Change: According to Britishcouncil.org, Old English was 90% phonemic (meaning the words sounded the same as they looked). But from the beginning of the 15th century, we began to borrow words from other languages. Because other languages have different grammar and usage rules, the words we adopted from them did not follow the same rules we use to pronounce words in English.
The English language borrowed the Latin alphabet, and so we have only got 26 letters to represent around 41 different significant sounds. That means we have to attempt to use combinations of letters to represent sounds.
In the Middle English Period, William Caxton brought the printing press to England. As time passed, pronunciation continued to change, but the printing press preserved the old spelling. Modern day English is only about 40% phonemic- meaning the words sound the way they are spelled. Some examples would be hope, knot, and light.
Letters added to make spelling look Latin or French: Medieval spellings of French loan words (dette, doute) were without the letter b. The b was added to connect words to their Latin origin from which the French words came (debit, dubitative); however the b remained silent in English (debt, doubt). Some other examples are: island and victual.
Sound combinations too difficult to say: Some sound combinations are just difficult to say so over time, some letters become silent. Examples would be: handkerchief and sandwich.
Borrowed words from other languages: We borrowed many words from other languages and kept their spelling. (champagne, khaki, myrrh)

5. Silent Consonants l, b, t

6. Words with silent l
half calf salmon could should would

7. Words with silent b thumb crumb lamb climb comb
What pattern do you see in all of these words?

8. Words with silent t
castle whistle ballet listen often soften fasten

9. Silent Letters
Practice these silent letters on workbook page 238