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Questions tagged [silent-letters]

A silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation.

A silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation.

Examples in English are the first letters in tsunami, mnemonic and ptarmigan.

99 questions
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Reason for silent letters before "n"

What is the reason, historical or otherwise, that many consonants are silent when they appear before "n". Examples: Gnome Pneumonia Mnemonic Knowledge
user66739
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What is the importance of silent letters in English language?

How did the usage of silent letters came into being? For example : what is the use of 'k' in knife or 'p' in pneumonia ?
Arshiya
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Why are there some inert letters?

My original question was: why is ⟨g⟩ is silent in phlegm but not in its derivatives like phlegmatic? After a research, I was linked to the Silent letter wiki: Some are inert letters, which are sounded in a cognate word: e.g. ⟨n⟩ in damn (cf.…
Ooker
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Silent-letter U in the word Vagueries

When pronouncing the word vagueries, is the U silent or pronounced as in the British pronunciation of jaguar? The context is the sentence ”The rebuttal was replete with so many vagueries as to be utterly unsubstantiated.”
Eric
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