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

Spoken language changes much faster than written language. For many words, when the written form of the word was first established they *did* pronounce those letters. Language has simply adopted a different pronunciation over the last few hundred years.