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

Unlike French, German and Dutch, the English language doesn’t have the history of language reform.

In the early 20th century a lot of language reform was done in the Netherlands to simplify the language and reduce the number of ways a word pronounced should be written (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschiedenis_van_de_Nederlandse_spelling#Spelling-Marchant and further).

In the 1996 the German language was made more consistent (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duitse_spellingwijziging_van_1996) and in France the Académie française takes care of it (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise)

For English, things were proposed many times but never really implemented (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform: English is the only one of the top ten major languages with no associated worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate spelling changes. )