Words with Silent N- The List

What are silent letters?

A silent letter in an alphabetical system of writing is a letter that in a word doesn’t really match any sound in the word’s pronunciation. A silent letter is typically represented with the null sign U+2205 EMPTY SET, in linguistics. A null segment is one that is unpronounced or unwritten. The symbol is similar to the Scandinavian letter as well as other symbols.

The significant number of silent letters is one of the notable characteristics of English spelling. Edward Carney differentiates between distinct types of “silent” letters, each of which presents readers with varying degrees of difficulty. The presence of many different silent letters is one of the most difficult features of English spelling and pronunciation.

Since English has developed from a variety of sources (Latin, Greek, French, German, Old English, and so on), it has had to absorb all of its predecessors’ spelling and pronunciation oddities. As a result, there have been numerous cases where specific letters have become silent. While it may appear that silent letters have no function in a word, this is not entirely true: silent letters can assist to separate two otherwise homophonous words, convey the meaning or origin of a word, or even aid in determining the overall sound of a word.

What is English Orthography?

The system of writing rules used to represent spoken English in written form is known as English orthography, and it allows readers to link the symbols to sound and interpretation. It covers spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation in English.

English spelling, like that of most other world languages, has a high level of standardization. When movable type was introduced to England in the late 15th century, this standardization began to emerge. Unlike other languages, however, practically every phoneme (sound) can be spelled in various ways, and most letters have multiple pronunciations depending on their position in a word and context.

What are silent consonants?

Silent consonants must be distinguished from a number of other consonant letters that are not pronounced correctly. Consonant letters that combine with a neighbouring letter to generate a sound that neither would make alone or to remove ambiguity about how the other letter should be pronounced are an important subset of these. The indicated sound will be a vowel if the other letter is a vowel; otherwise, it will be a consonant.

The letters “h,” “w,” and “y,” as in oh, cow, and toy, are examples of consonant letters that join with a vowel for these purposes and cannot be termed silent.

A consonant which is written as part of the spelling of a word without being pronounced is referred to as a “silent consonant” in the English spelling system.

If that’s the case, it’s not a feature unique to English, despite the fact that the English spelling system is infamous for it.

Numerous English words contain ‘silent letters,’ which are letters that are not uttered. Consider the distinctions between the words, ‘laughter’ and ‘daughter.’ You’ll notice that the word ‘laughter’ has a ‘f’ sound, but the word ‘daughter’ does not.

A silent letter is one that is written but not spoken. There are no common guidelines or recommendations for identifying a quiet consonant. In most circumstances, we must learn both the pronunciation and the meaning of the word. Let’s look at which letters can become silent and see if there are any trends.

What is a silent N?

The silent n, like the silent b, generally shows up after an ‘m’ and isn’t pronounced ‘nuh’ like a ‘n’ ordinarily is, but instead softens the word’s final vowel sound a little. Inside the mouth, the ‘n’ is silent, but it lengthens these phrases slightly more than if they ended in an ‘m’: hymn, damn, solemn, condemn, or column.

The silent N appears at the conclusion of every syllable. It’s always following the letter M, too. Whenever you see -MN at the end of a particular term, it’s safe to presume you’re only saying the MN. Unlike G, which can also be silent at the start or end of a word, there are no popular words that begin with a silent N.

Study of origin.

“Silent Letters are the ghosts of previous pronunciations.” These words used to have pronounced Ns in them.

The majority of them are Latin speakers who have learned English. Autumn, for example, is derived from the Latin autumnus, whereas column is derived from the Latin columna. The N was spoken in these words. If you try to pronounce them, you’ll notice that the N in autumnus is relatively simple to pronounce. It’s not simple to pronounce the letter N at the end of fall. Because the N in autumnus is preceded by a vowel, this is the case. It is the start of a new syllable.

When Latin words became English terms throughout time, most of them lost their Latin suffixes, such as -a and -us, and -ae and -i. The MN got really difficult to say once we eliminated those last syllables, so we just quit!

When is it used?

The letter ‘n’ is normally silent following the letter ‘m’ at the end of a word, as in autumn and column.

In some words, the ‘n’ after the ‘m’ in the same syllable is silent, as in autumny and columned.

In a few other words, the ‘n’ is likewise silent. E.g.- monsieur

Examples.

A few examples include autumn, damn, government, solemn, chimney, column, hymn, limn, etc.

Exceptions

Sometimes you’ll see -MN- in the middle of a word that has something to do with these silent N words.

Autumnal is the adjective form of autumn, and damnation is the noun form of damn. A hymnal is a book of songs. You normally pronounce the N in words like these where the first letter after MN is a vowel. We pronounce the N in autumnal, hymnal, and damnation.

However, in other circumstances, the sound that follows the MN is a consonant sound. Columns, for example, and solemnly. We normally do not pronounce the N when the next sound after the MN is a consonant sound.