What is the reason, historical or otherwise, that many consonants are silent when they appear before "n". Examples: Gnome Pneumonia Mnemonic Knowledge
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1If I have time later, I'll add a real answer, but they used to be pronounced like consonant sequences, then English lost those sequences (or never had them and just spelled them that way) so now we just pronounce the "n." – Azor Ahai -him- Aug 29 '17 at 22:43
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Partial duplicate of Why isn't the ‘P’ in psychology pronounced? – Laurel Aug 29 '17 at 22:56
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1Have you looked up the etymology of these words. Search for etymology online. – Arm the good guys in America Aug 29 '17 at 23:12
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In 793AD, The Vikings from Denmark and Norway with their Old Norse language invaded. After fighting the Anglo-Saxons they settled down together and gave English loads of words including the silent letter words: knife, knock, knee, know, gnat, gnaw, gnash, gnarl... The silent ‘k' and 'g' used to be pronounced, but we leave the letters in there to show the origin and history of the word.
The Anglo-Saxon and Viking languages became Old English.
Old English Letter Patterns: Many modern English letter patterns with silent letters in them come from Old English: -igh, -gh, wh-, -lk, wr-.
Saubree
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Well, whether and weather aren't perfect homophones for some speakers even now. – tchrist Aug 30 '17 at 00:26
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"The silent ‘k' and 'g' used to be pronounced, but we leave the letters in there to show the origin and history of the word." This sentence is correct, but some of the other stuff in this answer isn't. The term "Old English" is only used to refer to Anglo-Saxon, not Viking. There are a number of words spelled with "kn-" that aren't from Viking (i.e. Norse, North Germanic) languages. As far as I can tell, "knife" is from North Germanic, but "know" isn't. "Knight" also doesn't seem to be from Norse. – herisson Aug 30 '17 at 01:09