Unnecessary Letters
Two allied questions came up recently regarding silent letters.
One listener asked why the word ghost contains the letter h. Originally, in the Old English version of the word, there was no h. It was spelled gaest. The gh- combination was associated with Dutch, so how did it work its way into the English word?
It turns out that the g-h-o-s-t spelling appeared prominently in books printed by William Caxton and his protege Wynkyn deWorde. Both of them had learned their craft in the Low Countries before emigrating to London, which established a connection with the Dutch language and spelling conventions.
Another listener wanted to know why there is an unpronounced k in words such as knight, knob, knife, and knowledge. Once upon a time the k was pronounced in such words, a tipoff that English evolved from Germanic languages, where that combination was unremarkable.
Somewhere around the 15th century, the k sound began to be de-emphasized and eventually skipped altogether. This was probably due to Latin and French influences, two languages without the initial kn- combination. Once again, thanks to the invention of the printing press, the spelling was frozen in place even as the pronunciation disappeared.
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