In the old days, the letter k represented a voiceless velar nasal consonant. This sound is still present in words like kite, kitchen, kind, kangaroo and kiss.
Until about the 17th century, people in England pronounced words like knife using the /k/ sound. However, over time, this sound became silent. It is not known why this happened.
Origin
Before the 17th century, people pronounced words like knife and knee using the sound /k/. However, starting in the 15 century during the period of Middle English, speakers gradually stopped pronouncing the ‘k’.
It isn’t known why the ‘k’ in knife became silent but it’s probably because it was too hard to pronounce. This happened to many other letters in the English language and it’s not known what caused it to happen.
The letter k (or kay, pronounced /’keI/), is the eleventh letter in the Latin alphabet. It is used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and elsewhere worldwide.
It usually represents the voiceless velar plosive and is normally silent when it precedes an
Pronunciation
The k sound is a voiceless stop, pronounced at the velar ridge of the back of the mouth. This is unlike its voiced twin, g, which uses the vocal cords to vibrate.
To produce the k sound, raise your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth and then release. This makes a puff of air which is bigger than the similar /g/ sound.
Almost all children can articulate the k sound by age 2 and many replace it with /t/ by age 4. However, you should consult with a speech-language pathologist if your child has trouble pronouncing this sound or if she is already behind in her articulation abilities.
During your child’s early years, you may also want to help her learn the pronunciation of q, w and z. These letters appear only in foreign words and some proper names. They all sound slightly like k (see below).
Silent letters
Silent letters are the letters in English words that don’t make sounds but still have a major impact on the meaning and pronunciation of a word. In fact, more than 60% of all English words have silent letters.
Often, silent letters come from a word that originated from another language. For example, tsunami /[t]su:’na:mi/ is a Japanese word, and psychology /saI’kal@dZi/ comes from Greek.
The letters in these words don’t follow English phonological rules, so they became silent when they came to English. These silent letters are sometimes used to help you stress the correct syllable, or they can change the pronunciation of other letters, as in guest/gesture, rid/ride.
Homophones
Homophones (also known as homonyms) are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Sometimes, they also have different pronunciations.
One example is knife, which starts with the letter k instead of g or n. The k comes from the Greek word kilo, which means a thousand.
During the Middle English period, when the language was influenced by Latin and French, many speakers stopped pronouncing the k. This caused a lot of confusion, especially for new language learners.
However, this change wasn’t permanent and the k continues to be used in some words today. This is due to a word cluster called the “kn” cluster, which is present in some of these words:
In some languages, like Greek and Chinese, there are homophones that don’t have a silent letter, so they can be harder for new language learners to understand. Silent letters are helpful because they help students distinguish between homophones.