Silent F words As far as we know, this silent F pronunciation of fifth is the only example in English of a word with a silent F.
A silent letter is a letter that isn't heard when a particular word is pronounced. Think of the “b” in subtle, the “a” in bread, and the “h,” in ghost. Almost every word in the alphabet plays the role of a silent letter in at least one word. It's best to familiarize yourself with these pesky characters.
B. Most silent b's come at the ends of words and just after m: bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb.
F. While some people do in fact pronounce the second f in fifth, the first pronunciation given in our dictionary is the one that omits it. Overall, however, f is to be commended for its performance generally. We'd give it an A, if we were on speaking terms with that letter.
There is only one letter in the language that is never silent. Can you guess what it is? The letter is V! There are various very valuable v-words, and that V is never silent!
In the word, 'scissors', the 'c' is silent.
The letter ⟨k⟩ is normally silent (i.e. it does not reflect any sound) when it precedes an ⟨n⟩ at the beginning of a word, as in “knife”, and sometimes by extension in other positions.
And the letter 'h' is silent in the word 'ghost'.
Exceptions: Most of the words beginning with H are not silent (remember to use the article “a” with voiced H) For example history, history, hair, happy. The letter K is always silent when it precedes the letter N in a word.
As The Independent nicely says it, "Silent Letters are the ghosts of pronunciations past." Older versions of these words had pronounced Ns. Most of them come to English from Latin. For example autumn comes from the Latin autumnus and column comes from the Latin columna. In these words, the N was pronounced.
There are few rules to identify a word with silent H. Often, words beginning with W. Few examples are why, white, what, when, where. Etc.
Silent D: The letter D is silent when it comes just before the letters N and G. Examples: Wednesday, pledge, grudge, cadge. The letter D is also not pronounced in the following common words: handsome, handkerchief, sandwich.
Is the C in scissors silent? Silent C: The letter C is silent when it is in the letter combination of SC. Examples: scissors, ascent, fascinate, muscle. The letter C is also silent before the letters K and Q.
In the word 'sandwich', if you looked that up in the dictionary, you WOULD see the D sound. But it's actually never pronounced that way. So Wednesday, Handsome: the dictionary says no D.
Much like the b/p and d/t sounds (see Section 1), the Mandarin g and k sounds may sometimes sound very similar to you. This is because both are unvoiced in Mandarin, meaning the vocal chords do not vibrate when you say them. This results in a somewhat "softer" g than the English "g" sound.
It is not conclusively known why this occurred. However, some researchers believe it was due to the influence of Latin and French during this period, as these languages did not include the 'kn' cluster. This resulted in the 'k' being mispronounced or not pronounced and gradually eliminated.
b. Another common silent letter, this time often occurring at the end of the word, for example, comb, lamb, and thumb. Other words with silent 'b' include debt and doubt. She bit the tip of her left thumb, not looking at me.
The letter D is silent in some words that pair it up with the letter G, as in bridge, ridge, edge, ledge, and hedge.
Pronunciation tips: There is NO “th” in the pronunciation of the word “clothes.”
But as Merriam-Webster Dictionary points out, one unusual letter is never silent: the letter V. While it makes an appearance in words like quiver and vivid, you can rest assured it always behaves the exact same way.
As you can guess, the letter Z is the least commonly used letter in the English alphabet. (In American English, this letter is “zee.”) The letter Q is the second least commonly used letter. In English words, Q is almost always followed by the letter U.
The Icelandic alphabet consists of 32 letters. There are also three letters only used for foreign words, and one deleted letter (which is sometimes still used only for foreign words). The Icelandic language uses the latin alphabet, which is the same as the English alphabet and most Western European languages.