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

Because at one point, some of them used to be pronounced. Here’s an example of Middle English from the 14th century (Geoffrey Chaucer’s *The Canterbury Tales*)

Notice that “drought,” “night,” etc. have a GH sound where the modern word doesn’t. “Knight” also has a K sound at the beginning: “k’nEEcht”

By the time spelling was standardized, that sound was gone—but the words had been spelled with a GH for so long, they just sorta kept it anyway.