From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,ffd9867424acf610 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Adam Beneschan" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Pronunciation Date: 27 Jun 2005 09:41:19 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1119890479.262149.323940@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> References: <87r7ew3iu8.fsf@deneb.enyo.de><87d5qg3gom.fsf@deneb.enyo.de> <42BC1283.AC62B862@hp.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.126.103.122 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1119890485 23668 127.0.0.1 (27 Jun 2005 16:41:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:41:25 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=66.126.103.122; posting-account=cw1zeQwAAABOY2vF_g6V_9cdsyY_wV9w Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11683 Date: 2005-06-27T09:41:19-07:00 List-Id: Larry Elmore wrote: > > (Why do languages bother throwing in silent letters?) > > Usually because pronunciation has changed while the spelling has > remained static. The German language has a number of words beginning with "kn", and in German, both the K and the N are pronounced. Some of those words made their way into English, and at some point people decided it was too bothersome to pronounce the "k", but the letter remained in the spelling. I think the situation is roughly the same with "gn", although I remember more "kn" words from high-school German than "gn". (More accurately, I remember remembering them at some point.) -- Adam