The challenge of silent symbols

A characteristic of the English language that causes major spelling problems is the presence of “Silent Symbols.’’ Tens of thousands of words have at least one symbol (letter) that is not sounded when pronounced.

Silent Symbols in words fall into three distinct groups:

(1) silent vowels
(2) silent single consonants
(3) consonant combinations, where one or both of the symbols are silent.

It is important to master Silent Symbols because knowing about their presence in words is not only necessary for accurate spelling but also to be able to determine how a particular word is pronounced.

Silent vowels

• The most common silent symbol is the final “e” in words such as: lame, scene, ride, bone, tube. 
The 4S Key To Understanding Pronunciation and Spelling teaches: The final silent “e” usually lets the other vowel do the talking.  When the final “e” is not sounded, the preceding vowel is “long” and says its own name.

4S then applies the technique of Skills Transfer to teach many other related “e”-ending words.  For example, when one can spell and pronounce “ride” correctly, it is easy to also spell and pronounce bide, hide, side, tide, wide, bride, pride, slide, glide, aside, inside, provide, collide and many, many other like-sounding words.

• The next most common silent vowel category is when two vowels come together in a word.  Usually when this occurs, the second one is silent. The first vowel can make either a “long” or a “short” sound.  The semi- vowels “y” and “w” can also be silent when they are at the end of a word or syllable, e.g. day - knowing.

The 4S Key teaches: When two vowels go out walking the first one usually does the talking. i.e. the first vowel is sounded but the second one is silent. 
Examples: aim, people, tried, breathe – blow, pray – board, bread, breadth, wealth, health, leopard, jeopardy, weather.

Again, the word creation and word recognition tool of Skills Transfer is easy to apply, e.g. bread > dead, read, lead, dread, thread, instead. 
Sometimes, especially in words that have been borrowed from other languages, the first vowel is silent, e.g., shield, guide, hyaena, neutral, steak, break – guess, guest.

• Another 4S Key teaches: ‘Long’ vowels can signal the presence of a silent symbol. 
When one hears a “long” vowel sound in a word, a signal is sent that the word could be spelled with a silent vowel.  As we have just learned, it may be a final silent “e” on the end of the word or a silent vowel after or before the “long” vowel, e.g. take – bait – Caesar.    
 
Silent single consonants

 Of the 21 consonants, 11 are sometimes silent as single consonants: ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘h’, ‘l’, ‘p’, ‘r’, ‘s’, ‘t’ – ‘b’, ‘n’, ‘z’.  Two other consonants, ‘w’, ‘g’, can be silent in symbol combinations.

• The Silent “c”:  back, rack, track, shack, crack, bucket, pocket, indictment

• The Silent “d”: Wednesday - judge, ledge, wedge, hedge

• The Silent “h”:  honest, hour, heir, exhibit, vehicle, John, Thomas

• The Silent “l”: walk, talk, calm, palm, yolk, could, should, bell

• The Silent “p”: receipt, corps,

• The Silent “r”: iron

• The Silent “s”: island, isle, aisle, islet, descend, descendant

• The Silent “t”: listen, often, fasten, whistle, thistle, nestle, castle

• Silent “b” – “n” – “z” – “w”: The consonants ‘b’ and ‘n’ are always silent in one-syllable, root words when they follow the symbol ‘m’.  Examples: bomb, dumb, thumb, lamb, damn, column, autumn, hymn — mnemonic.  The silence sometimes can be lost when a suffix is added, e.g. hymn > hym/nal.

In two-syllable words, when the syllable split is between “m” and “b”, both the symbols are always sounded as they end and begin each respective syllable, e.g. num-ber, thim-ble, tim-ber, lum-ber, ram-ble.

In some words that have been borrowed from other languages there can be an unexpected silent symbol, e.g. “z” in “rendezvous”.

Silent symbols in consonant combinations

The common consonant combinations with silent symbols are “wr”, “wh”, “gh”, “kn” and “sc”.  In words beginning with “wr”, “w” always remains silent, e.g. wrap, wrong, write, wreck, wrench, wrist, wretch, wring.

The 4S Key teaches: ‘wr’ always says ‘r..’.

In “wh” words, the silent symbol varies from “w” to “h”. Compare these examples:

1. whip, why, wheat, whale, which, wheel, when, what, where

2. who, whom, whole, whose, whoever, wholesale, wholly.

The 4S Key teaches: In ‘who’ words, the ‘w’ is always silent.  In some cultures “wh” is pronounced as “h..w..” or “w..h..” thus sounding both symbols.

While “w” is often silent when used as a demi-vowel, e.g. blow, it also can be silent when it is part of the “sw” symbol combination, e.g. sword, answer.

There are two variations of the “gh” combination that come within the Silent Symbol category.

1. Words in which both symbols are silent: ought, fought, caught, daughter, height, sleight, eight, weight, straight, plough, dough

2. Words in which only the “h” is silent and the “g” says “g..” as in “goat”: ghost, ghetto, ghastly, gherkin, ghoul.

The common “kn” words in which the “k” is silent include: knife, knee, kneel, know, known, knew, knowledge, unknown, knight, kneel, knit, knob, knot, knock, knight, knuckle.  In some “sc” words, the “c” remains silent, e.g. scene, scent, scenic, scenery, science, scientist. Cp. scat, scuttle.

Most odd-looking consonant blends have a silent symbol.  They are usually found in words borrowed from other languages, e.g. dzho, rhinoceros, gnome, khaki, mnemonic, Djakarta, Tzar, dhama, bhang, ctenoid, bdellium, fjord, qwerty, zwieback, sjambok, tsunami, czar -- psychiatry, pneumonia, pneumatic, ptomaine.

The 4S Keys teach:

(1) In odd-looking consonant blends only one consonant is usually sounded.

(2) When ‘p’ begins an odd-looking consonant blend, it is usually silent.

(The author Keith W. Wright is a former politician, an educator and the director of the Australian International Language Academy. He is currently working with the Active E-Learning Technology Foundation to improve the English literacy skills of the academe, studentry and the Filipino workforce. E-mail youth@mb.com.ph).