Why does the English language have so many words where one or more letters are silent. For example why couldn’t “Knife” be simply written as nife or whatever combination of letters that make pronunciation obvious.

Question

Why does the English language have so many words where one or more letters are silent. For example why couldn’t “Knife” be simply written as nife or whatever combination of letters that make pronunciation obvious.

In: 2529

Answer 1

English language questions always have the same answer:

English is old germanic and middle French put in a blender.

So you get a lot of drifting spelling and pronunciation.

Knights used to be germanic knechts, with a hard K. Over 1000 years the k sound got lost.

Knife followed the same trajectory. It was once pronounced with a hard K but has long since lost its edge.