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People will really say shit about the silent letters in French and then completely ignore the unbelievably inconsistent pronunciation of "gh" in English.
And the french silent letters are pretty consistent
I, for one, love my Ghoughphtheightteeaus with some ghoti 🥔🐟
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti for people unaware
Thanks! I thought ghoti was some sort of Indian food and was using that as a hint to to figure out the first word. The best I did on my own was gaufth-ate-tea-aus and figured I hadn't heard of it.
Hint
- The "gh" in "hiccough"
- The "ough" in "doughnut"
- The "phth" in "phthisis"
- The "eigh" in "neighbour"
- The "tte" in "gazette"
- The "eau" in "plateau"
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghoughphtheightteeau
And why is "kn" even a thing in English?
Knowledge? Knight? Knee? Knapsack? Knitting?
How does that make any sense at all?
Edit" and then there's Gnome! Why isn't it Knome? Or Gnowledge?
because it was literally pronounced like that not too long ago, compare "knight" to "knekt" in swedish.
In Dutch we still have "knecht" (knave/servant), and I recall that Dutch and English have some overlap, so it makes sense.
I also recall a video about English, having adopted the Latin alphabet, made less sense than English under the previous Futhark (runes).
I'll be honest I've always found it weird that they decided to stop pronouncing those consonants at some point. Those words just sound better with the K pronounced!
Great voul shift and the Normans.
It’s gnomic.