Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Ben Davis June 7, Is the D in Wednesday silent? Why is the K in Knight silent? Is B silent in debt? What is the silent word in debt? Why does Bomb have a silent b? Is the P silent in receipt? Why is the p silent? English is linguistically categorized as a West Germanic language. Though it is now the most widely spoken language in the world, English actually got a pretty small start.
In the fifth century, many related Germanic dialects fused together, collectively becoming what is now known as Old English. These dialects were brought to the eastern coast of England by Germanic settlers and eventually gained a stronghold in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England in what is now southeast Scotland.
Grammarly can save you from misspellings, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and other writing issues on all your favorite websites. Old English eventually evolved into Middle English as a result of invasion and interaction. Beginning in the eleventh century, English was increasingly influenced by the Romance languages, so-named because they descended from Latin, the language of the Romans.
Specifically, the Norman Conquest of England in the eleventh century facilitated a heavy borrowing from Norman French.
As a result, vocabulary and spelling conventions began to evolve to more closely resemble those of a Latin-derived Romance language, even though English itself is not technically considered a Romance language. It became "Wednesdei" and the "d" remained, even as the word morphed into "Wednesday.
Wednesday is just one example of words — like February and ptarmigan — where letters appear in a word's spelling but not in its pronunciation. The curious case of America's silent "d" doesn't extend to parts of England, Scotland and India, where many people enunciate the letter.
Though some don't. Language is tricky! While there's no moment that can pinpoint the fading away of Wednesday's "d" in spoken American English, and no reason why — though an oceanic divide seems to have spurred language's evolution — the erosion of a pronounced letter over time isn't all that uncommon.
Phonologically speaking, when that happens to a letter on the interior of a word, it's called syncope. You may be familiar with syncope as a poetic device — going "o'er" a river instead of "over.
Chocolate has a central "o" that's not fully pronounced, and Christmas sounds more like a celebration of someone called Chris, though it celebrates a figure known as the Christ.
Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar.
0コメント