Edit: thanks, but I’m more interested in speech rather than writing. This question is from an actual 5 year old.
Edit: please be patient, I’m definitely confused.
Back story,
I’m trying to teach my kid spellings using phonetics (like they do in their schooll. So far kid is doing great except the words with silents. One thing led to another and I had to ask this here.
In: 2
I’m going to assume you mean letters.
There are numerous reasons.
One is that the letter used to make a sound but a change in how the word is pronounced has left the letter not making a sound. Eg. Knight
Some were added by dictionaries to show the etymology (history) of the word (some words had their spellings changed to reflect the language the word originally came from) and in some cases it was actually a false etymology (it was thought that the word came from a word and/or a language that it didn’t). Eg. Island. It was thought that it was related to isle and so an S was added. Isle though came from the latin insular while island turned out to be an English word that didn’t have an s.
With the above too the word may have just kept its original spelling or thereabouts when borrowed from another language and that language has different rules regarding phonetics.
Some are silent in that you don’t pronounce that letter in particular but it changes how another letter or letters are pronounced. The so called magic E.
Edit:
Changed the island/isle around as I double checked and had it backwards.
Edit:
Just saw your edit that you made after I posted this. Speech doesn’t have any letters. Speech only has sounds. Writing has letters.
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