And lo On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:45:02 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake thusly:

> Phil Cook v2 wrote:
>
>> To put it another way how do you know they were silent letters, how  
>> many voice recordings were there in the 17th century? Words such as  
>> knife might have entered as the standard spelling because the k was  
>> still pronounced at the time.
>
> Except that it's impossible to pronounce that.
>
> The only thing I can think of is if there used to be another vowel in  
> there which has slowly vanished or something.

As discussed such sounds are voiced in other languages we just 'lost' the  
ability while retaining the spelling.

>> Or it may well have been that 'everyone knows knife is spelt with a k'  
>> even if it wasn't voiced.
>
> As I say, I got the impression that this whole idea of words having a  
> fixed spelling didn't exist until printing came along. Like, ask five  
> different people and they'd spell the word five different ways. (And  
> probably pronounce it differently too, come to think of it.)

Printing just allowed mass distribution and set a standardised spelling  
system that way. It was copied from the hand-written/carved examples that  
already existed. Tradition is a powerful force - if the German texts wrote  
knife and the English texts copied that, then the print texts used that as  
their cue; that becomes the way it is spelt regardless of how it is now  
voiced.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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