This is true for a lot of words and I don’t understand what the point of including letters if they’re not supposed to be pronounced.
In: 6
Plumber specifically is spelled that way due to the origin of the word. Plumbum (the B is pronounced) is the Latin word for lead (the metal). Plumbers used to work with lead all the time because that’s what pipes were made from.
Plumber specifically is spelled that way due to the origin of the word. Plumbum (the B is pronounced) is the Latin word for lead (the metal). Plumbers used to work with lead all the time because that’s what pipes were made from.
Others has answered why the English and French languages has silent letters.
But there are many languages that developed similiarly, and they don’t have/rarely have silent letters, like Hungarian and Slovakian.
For us, there is a letter for every sound you make in the language, and (almost) every word is writtes as it sounds.
But the question is why did some languages did what the English did, that their writing is nothing like their speech?
I heard an anecdote, that in the medievel times, French and English book copiers were paid money/letter, so they added almost random letters to most words, so they would get paid more.
Or the English and French writers were so bad at grammar, that they often made mistaken, and later their version of the words would be used, until someone else was very bad at grammar, and the cycle continued.
Others has answered why the English and French languages has silent letters.
But there are many languages that developed similiarly, and they don’t have/rarely have silent letters, like Hungarian and Slovakian.
For us, there is a letter for every sound you make in the language, and (almost) every word is writtes as it sounds.
But the question is why did some languages did what the English did, that their writing is nothing like their speech?
I heard an anecdote, that in the medievel times, French and English book copiers were paid money/letter, so they added almost random letters to most words, so they would get paid more.
Or the English and French writers were so bad at grammar, that they often made mistaken, and later their version of the words would be used, until someone else was very bad at grammar, and the cycle continued.
> I don’t understand what the point of including letters if they’re not supposed to be pronounced.
As an American who grew up learning English as a first language the whole weird spelling thing never really made much sense to me either. But, as I learned a bit of Japanese in college, I had a bit of a revelation… the English “spelling” system is just a different take on those symbolic “Hanzi/Kanji” systems like China and Japan use.
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Pronunciation isn’t always perfectly uniform, and it evolves and changes over time. This leaves two options: constantly evolving spellings (with regional differences), or standardized spellings (where spelling isn’t necessarily a prescription for pronunciation). English mostly chose the second path.
What this means is that “pecan” refers to one specific type of nut regardless of whether folks pronounce it pih-KAHN, pee-KAHN, or PEE-can where you live… but it does mean that “the written word” and “the spoken word” are kinda two different things that you have to memorize how they mesh together (not all that differently from how Chinese folks do with their characters).
These “silent letters” and whatnot are a huge pain to have to memorize (similar to those thousands of symbols Asian folks have to learn) but once you do have it down it is relatively powerful in that we can distinguish different meanings even between homophones. Reading a page, we can know that “ewe” and “you” are referring to two different concepts – we can read “pyromaniac” versus “pie-row maniac” and realize one refers to an arsonist-type whereas the other is presumably a fan of dessert-based combat.
Essentially, English spelling is a process of freezing loanwords’ spellings so that we can treat the words (or at least the word-roots) as shared symbols despite evolving and diverging pronunciations.
> I don’t understand what the point of including letters if they’re not supposed to be pronounced.
As an American who grew up learning English as a first language the whole weird spelling thing never really made much sense to me either. But, as I learned a bit of Japanese in college, I had a bit of a revelation… the English “spelling” system is just a different take on those symbolic “Hanzi/Kanji” systems like China and Japan use.
—————–
Pronunciation isn’t always perfectly uniform, and it evolves and changes over time. This leaves two options: constantly evolving spellings (with regional differences), or standardized spellings (where spelling isn’t necessarily a prescription for pronunciation). English mostly chose the second path.
What this means is that “pecan” refers to one specific type of nut regardless of whether folks pronounce it pih-KAHN, pee-KAHN, or PEE-can where you live… but it does mean that “the written word” and “the spoken word” are kinda two different things that you have to memorize how they mesh together (not all that differently from how Chinese folks do with their characters).
These “silent letters” and whatnot are a huge pain to have to memorize (similar to those thousands of symbols Asian folks have to learn) but once you do have it down it is relatively powerful in that we can distinguish different meanings even between homophones. Reading a page, we can know that “ewe” and “you” are referring to two different concepts – we can read “pyromaniac” versus “pie-row maniac” and realize one refers to an arsonist-type whereas the other is presumably a fan of dessert-based combat.
Essentially, English spelling is a process of freezing loanwords’ spellings so that we can treat the words (or at least the word-roots) as shared symbols despite evolving and diverging pronunciations.
The word plumber comes from the Latin plumbum meaning lead, this is also why lead has the Pb symbol on a periodic table of elements. Most of our English language comes from other older languages, one of which is Latin.
The word plumber comes from the Latin plumbum meaning lead, this is also why lead has the Pb symbol on a periodic table of elements. Most of our English language comes from other older languages, one of which is Latin.
English spelling became standardized between 1475 and 1630: basically the reign of the Tudors, plus a few decades before and afterward. That was an era when mass-production printing became possible, and the language style used in the royal capital spread its influence over the area dominated by the rising nation-state.
Pronunciation changes happen regardless of spelling, though, and this article from the makers of the Oxford English Dictionary talks about pronunciation changes that happened after spelling became standardized:
[https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/](https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/)
Some people hate the inconsistency between English spelling and English pronunciation, but people hate even more the attempts of spelling reformers to tell them how to write.
https://www.historytoday.com/brief-history-english-spelling-reform
English spelling became standardized between 1475 and 1630: basically the reign of the Tudors, plus a few decades before and afterward. That was an era when mass-production printing became possible, and the language style used in the royal capital spread its influence over the area dominated by the rising nation-state.
Pronunciation changes happen regardless of spelling, though, and this article from the makers of the Oxford English Dictionary talks about pronunciation changes that happened after spelling became standardized:
[https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/](https://public.oed.com/blog/early-modern-english-pronunciation-and-spelling/)
Some people hate the inconsistency between English spelling and English pronunciation, but people hate even more the attempts of spelling reformers to tell them how to write.
https://www.historytoday.com/brief-history-english-spelling-reform
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