The conversation between human and AI assistant.
Why are silent letters used in some words of English language?
Can you tell me more about the history of silent letters in the English language?
Certainly. One interesting fact is that the letters "gh" were once pronounced as a guttural sound in many words in Old and Middle English. However, over time this sound disappeared from the language, leaving behind the silent "gh" that we now have in words like "knight" and "thought". Another example is the word "island", which used to be spelled as "iland" but acquired the silent "s" due to a mistaken association with the word "isle", meaning "island".