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Silent e , like many conventions of written language that no longer reflect current pronunciations, was not always silent. In Chaucer's Balade, the first line does not scan properly unless what appears to current eyes to be a silent e is pronounced: Hyd, Absolon, thy giltè tresses clerè. Gilte ends in the same sound as modern English Malta.
Several sound-changes in Anglo-Latin are due to the presence of the "semivowel", an alteration of certain front vowels. Originally ordinary vowels, they acquired at different points in history the value of the glide /j/ (a y-sound like that in English canyon). Subsequently, their value has fluctuated through history between a consonant and a ...
Words ending in a stressed vowel (e.g., вода́) can only rhyme with other words which share the consonant preceding the vowel (e.g., когда́). Words ending in a stressed vowel preceded by another vowel, as well as words ending in a stressed vowel preceded by /j/, can all be rhymed with each other: моя́, тая́ and чья all rhyme.
This affects words such as lamb and plumb, as well as derived forms with suffixes, such as lambs, lambing, plumbed, plumber. By analogy with words like these, certain other words ending in /m/, which had no historical /b/ sound, had a silent letter b added to their spelling by way of hypercorrection. Such words include limb and crumb. [35]
The words given as examples for two different symbols may sound the same to you. For example, you may pronounce cot and caught the same , do and dew , or marry and merry . This often happens because of dialect variation (see our articles English phonology and International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects ).
Related: 16 Games Like Wordle To Give You Your Word Game Fix More Than Once Every 24 Hours We'll have the answer below this friendly reminder of how to play the game .
The letter y has double function (modifying the vowel as well as being pronounced as [j] or [i]) in the words payer, balayer, moyen, essuyer, pays, etc., but in some words it has only a single function: [j] in bayer, mayonnaise, coyote; modifying the vowel at the end of proper names like Chardonnay and Fourcroy.
It should not be used for representing non-English words or an approximation thereof. Sometimes another means of indicating a pronunciation is more desirable than this respelling system, such as when a name is intended to be a homonym of an existing English word or phrase, or in case of an initialism or a name composed of numbers or symbols.