The letter C is also silent before the letters K and Q. Examples: block, puck, lock, acknowledge, aqua, acquit, acquiesce.
Like many silent letters, the K was not always silent. In Old English, the word knight was once cniht and knot was once cnotta, and the K sound at the beginning used to be pronounced, up until about the 17th century.
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.
However, silent ⟨k⟩ and ⟨g⟩ occur because of apheresis, the dropping of the initial sound of a word. These sounds used to be pronounced in Old and Middle English.
Replacing the letter c with k in the first letter of a word was used by the Ku Klux Klan during its early years in the mid-to-late 19th century. The concept is continued today within the group. For something similar in the writing of groups opposed to the KKK, see § KKK replacing c or k, below.
The Romans had borrowed their alphabet from a group of people called the Etruscans, who had borrowed theirs from the Greeks. One of the Greeks' letters looked like our <X>. It was called chi, pronounced [kī], and it spelled the sound [k].
This alternation is caused by a historical palatalization of /k/ which took place in Late Latin, and led to a change in the pronunciation of the sound [k] before the front vowels [e] and [i].
Old English inherited the grand old tradition of using gamma, shaped like a C, for the K sound and ignoring kappa. The letter K was reintroduced much later when we started borrowing more Greek words. In those cases, we used the original kappa to represent the K sound.
There is a silent "d" in the word "Wednesday" .
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.
Silent “L” Patterns
If an “L” is found towards the end of the word, before the letters “f,” “v”, “k” and “m,” but after the letter “a,” then it's usually silent (behalf, calve, walk, almond).
Over time, the general rule is that Germanic languages (such as English) will favor the K spelling, and Latin languages favor the C spelling. Now, as English has become the most widely-spoken Germanic language, it's easy to see how the “K” spelling became the standardized way to romanize the name “Korea.”
The Old Latin alphabet had 3 letters for the sound [k]: C, K, and Q. K was used before A, Q before V (the shape U appeared later), and C elsewhere.
Not only the C, but also the letter K, in the Roman alphabet, was pronounced like a K (again, hard or voiceless velar plosive). Like the word-initial K in English, the Latin K was rarely used.
The letter "g" comes close to following a phonics rule similar to the one for the letter "c." For example, it is always pronounced /g/ unless it is followed by an "e," "i" or "y." Thus, we have game, got, and gum, as well as glad, grand, and rugby.
Here's the general rule: When c or g meets a, o, or u, its sound is hard. When c or g meets e, i, or y, its sound is soft. See also: Guide to Spelling.
When your students hear the /k/ sound at the beginning of a word, they probably think of the letter “c.” Teach that K comes before the letters i and e in a word. Like in the words “kid” and “key.” On the other hand, the letter c comes before the letters a, o, and u, like cat, cod, and cup.
The letter"L" is silent in salmon.
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.