I sometimes describe parts of English spelling as “a museum of earlier pronunciations.”
This doesn’t explain all the idiosyncrasies of English spelling, of which there are many, but it does explain some of the silent consonants we still see today.
English used to have some consonant clusters at the beginnings of words that we no longer say as clusters because one sound has been lost (lost in the spelling and pronunciation or lost just in the pronunciation). For example, Old English (spoken before the year 1100) featured the initial consonant clusters “hl,” “hr,” “hn,” “gn,” and “kn.”
To give you some examples, the word loafin Old English was hlaf.The Modern English word ringwas hringe.And the word neckwas hnecca.The “h” sound at the beginning of these words was dropped fairly early in the history of English; and importantly, it stopped being pronounced before spelling was standardized. As a result, in the spelling of these words, we no longer see the “h.”
In contrast, let’s take the words gnatand knife.The consonant clusters at the beginning of both words used to be pronounced. The initial “g” and the initial “k” were lost during the Renaissance right as spelling was getting standardized. Thus, the spelling preserves the sound even though we’ve lost it in the pronunciation.
This fact also explains a word like knight,in which both the initial “k” and the medial “gh” were pronounced. (The “gh” represented a sound linguists call a palatal fricative: an “h”-like sound pronounced with your tongue moved up to or toward the hard palate at the top of your mouth.)
Now, earlier pronunciations don’t explain all the silent consonants in modern spelling, and I want to give you one example, which is the “s” in island.
The “s” in island is a mistake.
The word islandgoes back to Old English, to a compound word that meant “water land” or “river land.” In Old English it was often spelled iglandor iland,and the word was still spelled ilandin the 15th and 16th centuries. But in the Renaissance, the word came to be associated with the French-borrowing isle,which goes back to the Latin insula.As a result, scholars thought the “s” had gotten left out somewhere in the history of English, and in the Renaissance they put the “s” back in.
As these examples demonstrate, sometimes silent consonants capture an earlier pronunciation in the history of English and sometimes they capture an earlier misunderstanding.
susan turner - 1975? (business)
thank you for resolving this enigma!
i now have an answer to the question (posed by french, spanish & other folks) re: the whacky spelling of english words
Reply
l.k. rhodes - Law '85
It’s “palatal fricative,” not “palatial,” I hope. Latter would involve too much spit.
Reply
Deborah Holdship
Apparently some words come with errant vowel clusters too… Since fixed. So sorry! — Ed.
Reply
Philip Ventura - 1970 LS & A
Dear Professor Curzan,
Oh, I wish that I could have studied English with you back when!
I chose Russian and French instead.
Reply
Phil Levy - 1988 LSA
Very interesting. How do we know what Old English pronounciations were? Obviously we have written records, but based on the modern example, we know that those can be an imperfect guide to pronounciation.
Reply
James Polichak - 2003
There are several methods, though none are perfect.
First, documents written in Old English were written with the intent to reflect the pronunciation. There were no earlier written documents that would bias spelling to reflect older pronunciations as would occur later in history.
The result of this is variability in spelling from writer to writer, or even within the work of the same writer, as their efforts to reproduce the sounds with writing were based on individual efforts (William Shakespeare seems to have spelled his last name in more than a dozen ways at different times). This allows for some sense of “triangulation” of what the pronunciation likely was. But there is also a difficulty here as different spellings may reflect local variations in pronunciation.
The fact that a person is writing in English at a time when most scholarly work was composed in Latin is another indicator that the writer intended to reproduce the sound of the local spoken language. In certain cases, the writer is translating a Latin text into English, and may be the first or among the first to do so. When you have the first, or one of the first few, examples of an older text in English, it is highly likely that the spellings used were intended to reflect the spoken English of the time, and that the English spellings used are not influenced by older English language texts.
Determining pronunciation is also aided by the prevalence of texts composed in poetic form with rhyme schemes and other poetic devices based on sound correspondences. The pronunciation of one word can be inferred from the known pronunciation of a second word that is used in a rhyme with that first word- the most likely pronunciation is that which would complete the rhyme scheme.
There are also correspondences among related languages. In many cases, there are systematic relationships between the pronunciation of words across languages, as well as systematic changes in pronunciation. Often, the time of these changes are identifiable as well. So when we see a change in spelling in one language compared to another, we can use that to infer that the change in spelling is a consequence of a change in pronunciation.
This type of relationship across related languages persists to the current day for many words. For example, while in English “knight” is pronounced as if the initial K and the internal GH are silent, the German equivalent “knecht” retains the pronunciation of the K and the CH is pronounced as a palatal fricative.
So there are several methods, but some uncertainty remains. Being able to combine several types of evidence for a particular word increases the likelihood that a derived pronunciation is very close to that used at the time. But it must also be kept in mind that local and regional pronunciation differences were more common in the past than they are now due to much less communication with people who were not from the local area. Pronunciation differences based on economic stratification were also common. And the pronunciation of vowels is more variable than that of consonants, making determination of past pronunciation of these sounds more uncertain. Examples of rhymes are particularly useful in reconstructing the pronunciation of vowels.
Reply
Barrett Kalellis - 1969; 1973
I’ve always wondered why the initial “c” was not pronounced when reading the title of a certain kind of pop music known as “(c)rap.” Perhaps this explains it.
Reply
James Polichak - 2003
This is more than a bit offensive. And it is unfortunate for you that you are unable to enjoy the most innovative form of musical expression that has appeared in the last 35 years.
Reply
bobby digarbi - 1993
Music (or what they call music)-
enjoyable or not–
innovative or not–
it’s about personal subjective speculation and opinion–
I’d like to be able to enjoy some U of M related dialogue without the all too often scolding, pc, and thought police commentary .
And while we’re at it, stick to the subject without the extraneous agenda.
Reply
James Polichak - 2003
While the enjoyability of something may be subjective, whether someone enjoys something or not is much less so. Assuming our commenter is being truthful, we can be rather certain that they do not enjoy rap music.
Linguistic (and artistic) innovation is measurable in many ways. For example, Shakespeare is considered to be very innovative in his use of English based on the number of words that are first attested in his works.
Shakespeare’s works are also considered to have high density with regard to phonetic and semantic inter-relationships from the level of the word to the overall play (e.g., content appearing near the finale may relate to content appearing near the beginning in important ways) to allusions to the writings of his cohort of playwrights and poets or to contemporaries in politics or other arenas of human activity, or across the centuries to the words of those long dead.
Shakespeare’s innovativeness is also measured by his early incorporation of new discoveries from the global exploration occurring during his lifetime as well as the scientific and mercantile inventions appearing in his lifetime – which were often inter-related in important ways.
To a certain degree, Shakespeare was able to exercise such creativity by being a relative outsider – the world of the theater was not held in the highest esteem at the time – as well as a relative insider – London received the news of explorers comparatively soon, and was both a major locus of importation of inventions from other places and a major locus of invention itself.
Rap music is also known for innovation in creation of new words. It is also notable for its density of phonetic and semantic inter-relationships within a song, and layers of reference to the contemporary community of musicians and to musicians of the past.
Some of these references are extremely contentious, referring to or contributing to crimes up to and including murder, as well as a highly debatable relationship with intellectual property laws.
Its political influence in undeniable. This influence exists as a source of information about communities that have been neglected or disparaged for centuries, information that also serves to build the strength of these communities. As its popularity spread beyond the initial locations of production, through conscious and vigorous use of new electronic and media technology, rap music became a focus of national and international political discourse.
Rap artists were aided in doing so, especially initially, by their presence in the major media centers of the United States, New York and Los Angeles. They also fed populations hungry for artistic explorations that reflected their lives. One cannot avoid the parallels between the underclass status of the theater and its audience in the second half of the 16th century and the underclass status of rap music and its audience in the second half of the 20th century.
And it is a testimony to the innovative content of rap music in terms of structural comparisons with prior musical forms, and to its documentation of the lives and communities traditionally cut off from and disparaged by the mainstream culture, that rap music swiftly invaded the mainstream of both music and culture.
This is not to say that rap music, or any artist within that genre, is comparable to Shakespeare. But it is comparable to the rebirth of the theater as a genre of expression. Both developed a cycle of growth in popular and critical acceptance and appreciation fed by an audience that included many who swiftly became producers.
Most changes in culture are not appreciated by those whose preferences were shaped by earlier forms of expression prior to the introduction of the newer forms of expression. It is youth who primarily seek novelty, while those whose youth has passed seek reinvigoration and comfort in the forms of expression that were the novelties they sought while youthful.
This is not off topic, nor is it an extraneous agenda. It is directly related to how language changes and how those changes are treated by different populations within a society. The silencing of consonants has been contentious throughout the history of the English language. The growing differences between pronunciation and the written form of words has been the subject of thought and debate by professional linguists, by social critics of various levels of profession and professionalism, by parents and teachers and the children they instruct.
Within modern English expression, one of the best sources for observation and participation in the continuous struggle between the pronunciations of words and their written form may be found within the transcriptions of the lyrics of rap music. It is where the museum of earlier pronunciations faces the challenge of what to display and what to place in storage.
Reply
Nancy Boyer-Rechlin - 1970
Just found this for the first time. FUN! and insightful, too.
Reply
Mary Ellen Vaydik - 1964
My maiden name was Knake (pronounced Kuh-nahk-ee) and the only person ever to pronounce it correctly on the first try was Thomas Garbaty, my Chaucer professor, who was well-versed in the Middle English pronunciation of all the sounds in a word like knight.
Reply