Silent Letters

Let's take a look at some rules for silent letters:

1. The letter B is usually silent when used after the letter M and also before the letter T.
Examples before M: Jamb, Lamb, Comb, Tomb
Examples before T: Subtle, Doubt
2. The letter C is silent when used before the letter Z and sometimes when used before the letter L
and the letter K.
Examples before Z: Tzar, Czarina, Czechoslovakia
Example before L: Muscle
Examples before K: Block, Puck
3. The letter D is silent when it appears before the letter N and then also before the letter G.
Example before N: Wednesday
Example before G: Cadge
4. Let's look at the letter E.
If E happens to be at the end of a word, it is generally not pronounced.
Examples: Able, Challenge, Bible
If E happens to occur right before the letter D in simple past tense or past participle forms of verbs,
E may sometimes not be pronounced.
Examples: Smuggled, Dragged, Chained
5. The letter G is silent when it is used before the letters M, N and L.
Examples before N: Deign, Reign
Example before M: Diaphragm
Example before L: Intaglio
6. The letter H is often silent when it precedes the letters E and O, and when it follows the letters G,
R and T.
Examples before A, E, I and O: Hallelujah, Honest, Historical
Examples after G: Ghost, Ghirken
Example after R: Myrrh
Example after T: Isthmus

7. The letter K is always silent when it precedes the letter N.

Examples: Know, Knock, Knife, Knight
Silent letters are those which do not represent any element; and they must
not be sounded in the pronounciation of the words in which they occur.
1. E final is usually
silent; as in
brave, crime, drone,
abide, become,
improve; able, marble,
Bible.

2. E is often silent
before d; as in bribed,
changed, hedged;
cradled, handled,
struggled.

3. E is often silent
before l; as in drivel,
grovel, hazel, shovel,
swivel, weasel.

4. E is often silent
before n; as in garden,
hidden, kitten, lighten,
spoken, taken.

5. I is sometimes silent
before l; as in evil,
weevil.

6. I is sometimes silent
before n, as in basin,
cousin, reisin.

8. B is silent
7. O is sometimes silent
after m and before t; as
before n, as in bacon,
in comb, climb, dumb,
deacon, mason, pardon,
jamb, lamb, tomb; debt,
reason, weapon.
doubt; subtle.

9. C is silent in czar, and

muscle, and
before k and t and s; as
in back, crack, lock;
indict, victuals, scene,
scythe, scepter.

10. D id silent in
Wednesday,
standtholder, and
before g in the same
syllable; as in badge,
fadge, dodge.

12. H is silent in heir,

herb, honest; and
after g or r; at the end of
a word and preceded by
a vocal; and sometimes
after t; as in ghastly,
gherkin, ghostly; rheum,
rhyme, myrrh; ah, oh,
halleluiah; isthmus.

13. K is always silent

before n; as in knave,
knee, knife, knob,
known, knew.

Silent Ls
by Lionel E. Deimel

11. G is silent
before m and n, and
sometimes before l; as
in phlegm, diaphragm;
gnat, feign, consign;
intaglio, seraglio.

A couple of months ago, my church choir was singing an arrangement of Balm in Gilead. I noticed
that a friend of mine and fellow bass was pronouncing the L in balm. I pointed out that
the L was silent, as in palm. Apparently, he pronounced the L in that word also, however.
When I started thinking about it, I realized that a number of words have silent Ls. Some of
them are very common, such as talk, walk, half, and calf. These words are virtually
never mispronounced. Less common words with silent Ls are often mispronounced.
Among these are almond, folk, calm, and balk. These mispronunciations are mostly a curious
product of literacy; people see the words in print and, since Ls are not usually silent,
assume the Ls are supposed to be pronounced, even if they have heard the words
pronounced correctly.
Not being a linguist, I have no scholarly explanation for all these silent Ls, but there
seems to be no single historical pattern to explain the phenomenon. Some words have
apparently always contained the letter. For example, yolk derives from the Middle
English yolkeand the Old English geolca, which is related to geolu (yellow). The word
lost the L sound but retained the letter in its spelling. Other words have stranger histories. Colonel,
must surely represent one of the more bizarre cases, having an L that is not pronounced and lacking
an R that is. The word ultimately derives from the Latin for column, columna. English,
however, got the word from Old French, from which it was first imported as coronel.
Heres my list of words Ive been able to identify that contain silent Ls, as well as a
few notes about them. Ive grouped words to show spelling similarities, though words
in the same group may not have silent Ls for the same reason.
Readers are invited to add to this list.
More than one reader has complained that my list includes words
that, although they are not pronounced with the characteristic L sound, have
pronunciations influenced by the presence of an L. For example, the L in calve does
not act as though it is absent; the words calve and cave are not homonyms. The
point is well-taken, but I would argue that speaking of the influence of a silent L presumes that
English spelling is more systematically phonetic than it is in actuality. In the list that follows, all I claim is
that the words in the list, at least sometimes, are pronounced without a characteristic L sound.
DeKalb

Silent L follows A and is followed by B. The

county in Georgia is pronounced this way. The
county in Illinois, on the other hand, is
pronounced with the L.

calf
half (also halfback, halfbaked, etc.)
Ralph

Silent L follows A and is followed by F or the Fsounding PH. Ralph is pronounced with an L
in the U.S. In the U.K., however, the name is
pronounced "Rayf," as in Ralph Vaughn
Williams.

balk
chalk
falcon (also falconer,
falconet, etc.)

Silent L follows A and is followed by K or a K

sound. I personally pronounce falcon with an
L, but several dictionaries show at least one
pronunciation lacking an L sound. The chiefly

malkin
stalk
talk
walk (also cakewalk,
sidewalk, etc.)

British malkin may be pronounced with or

without an L.

Falkland

Same pattern as above. Apparently,

pronunciations with and without a silent L are
considered acceptable. Names are likely to be
less consistent in pronunciation because they
so easily can be influenced by as few as one
person. The L is pronounced in Salk, for
example.

almond
alms
balm (and balmy)
calm
embalm
Malmesbury
malmsey
palm (also palmy and
palmlike)
palmary
palmate (and palmation)
palmer (and Palmer)
palmerworm
palmist (and palmistry)
Palmolive
psalm (also psalmist and
psalmody)
qualm
salmon (also salmonoid and
salmonberry)

Silent L follows A and is followed by M. William

of Malmesbury was a twelfth-century English
monk. Perhaps salmon deserves a separate
listing. Interestingly, salmonella, pronounced
with the L, is derived from the name of Daniel
E. Salmon, who, presumably, pronounced his
name with an L. Although palmthe tree or
the part of the handis invariably pronounced
without an L sound by the literate, related
words, such as palmate, are often, though not
necessarily, pronounced with an L sound. The
brand name Palmolive was chosen for a soap
made with palm and olive oils. Psalm, by the
way, can be a noun or a verb.

Chelmsford

Silent L follows E and is followed by M.

Chelmsford is a town in Essex (in England) and
another in Massachusetts. Apparently, each
may be pronounced with or without an L sound,
though I suspect that, in the U.K., the L is
seldom heard. The Essex town, which dates
from Roman times, has changed its name over
the years, but the E-L-M sequence has been
fairly constant.

calve
halve
salve

Silent L follows A and is followed by V. But other

words with similar spelling do not have a silent
L: salvation, solve, valve. Halve has the

homonym have.
baulk
caulk
Faulkner
haulm

Silent L follows A-U and is followed by K.

(Baulk is a variant of balk, of course.)

solder

Silent L follows O and is followed by D. But we

also have: bolder, colder, holder, and molder.
Like colonel, this word has an odd history, in
which the L was dropped, then added back.

folk
folksy
Norfolk
Polk
polka
polka dot
Suffolk
yolk

Silent L follows O and is followed by K. Polk, of

course, was an American President. Polka
can be pronounced with the L silent or not. The
L in polka dot, however, is always silent.

Chisholm
Cholmondeley
holm
Holmbridge
Holme
Holmfirth
Holmes
Malcolm
Olmsted
Stockholm

Silent L follows O and is followed by M. Many

readers will be unfamiliar with the British name
Cholmondeley, pronounced, inexplicably,
Chum-ley. (This 12-letter name has five silent
letters, two of them vowels.) Holm is not often
used in the U.S. It is of Scandinavian origin and
refers to an island in a river. This is, of course,
related to Stockholm. Non-silent Ls are
acceptable both in holm and Stockholm.
Holmbridge, Holme, and Holmfirth are all
names of English towns on the River Holme,
presumably names of Viking origin.

Lincoln

Silent L follows O and is followed by N.

colonel

Silent L between two Os. I doubt there is

another word that follows this pattern.

could
should
would

Silent L follows O-U and is followed by D.

yarmulke

This word, denoting a Jewish skullcap, has a

Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, and Turkic origin. It
occurs often enough in English speech to be
considered part of the English language, but I
know of no other English word following a
similar orthographic pattern. Dictionaries offer
several alternative pronunciations for this word,

but it is often pronounced with a silent L.

Wrocaw (Wroclaw)

Wrocaw (Breslau in German) is a city of more

than half a million people in southwestern
Poland. It has, at times, been part of Germany,
Bohemia, Austria, and Prussia. The name is
pronounced something like vrotswaf or
vrotslav, neither of which seems very natural
from an American viewpoint. I suspect that
Poland has other place names with a nonsounded L. (Thanks to Julia Sommer for
pointing out Wrocaw, a name I would have
been unlikely to find on my own.)