Why do many words have silent letters when even without them the word would sound the same, like ‘island’ and many others.

Question

I tried asking my English teacher back in school but even she did not have an answer.

In: 157

Answer 1

English is a language made up largely of loanwords. We borrowed a great many words from a great many languages. Latin, German, Greek, Scottish, whatever. The result is a language where the spelling makes no sense at all because the words aren’t all from the same place.