People in England started dropping the k sound of knight, know, and knot in the years after Shakespeare lived (1564-1616). However, both k and n are still spoken today in European languages.
Language can pick up a slang word that is used so often and by so many people, that it can begin to seem like a proper word.
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| Carisbrook castle on the isle of Wright Would you like to be transported back to the year 1000? |
Language can pick up a slang word that is used so often and by so many people, that it can begin to seem like a proper word.
That may have been how letter k become silent in the letter team kn.
It probably took several hundred years for k to become silent and kn words to seem proper. Change was slow in a world without radio, tv, telephone, even without newspapers. People traveled by foot and horseback. It took a long time for an idea to move from one place to another.
Why did we keep letter k for spelling? It is possible k was kept to make it easy to see the difference between:
knight / night know / now knot / not knit / nit (a flea) knee / nee
knave (a misbehaving boy) and nave (an area within a church)
Nee refers to the name a girl was given when she was born. Her name would change to her husband's last name when she married. Her name would be written this way: Ann Jones, nee Baker (meaning Baker was her name before marriage.)
Knight is an ancient word from Old English, spoken long before it was written. The spelling started as cniht, (c says the k sound). Cni may have come from kin, the word meaning one's family. We still use the ancient word kin today to speak of someone in our family.
The above painting of the Carisbrooke Castle was done in 1828 by the famous Englishman, William Turner. Turner did not use e at the end of Carisbrooke. To see a large photograph of an amazing suit of armor, please visit this website:
http://museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/buckhurstarmour.html
It probably took several hundred years for k to become silent and kn words to seem proper. Change was slow in a world without radio, tv, telephone, even without newspapers. People traveled by foot and horseback. It took a long time for an idea to move from one place to another.
Why did we keep letter k for spelling? It is possible k was kept to make it easy to see the difference between:
knight / night know / now knot / not knit / nit (a flea) knee / nee
knave (a misbehaving boy) and nave (an area within a church)
Nee refers to the name a girl was given when she was born. Her name would change to her husband's last name when she married. Her name would be written this way: Ann Jones, nee Baker (meaning Baker was her name before marriage.)
Knight is an ancient word from Old English, spoken long before it was written. The spelling started as cniht, (c says the k sound). Cni may have come from kin, the word meaning one's family. We still use the ancient word kin today to speak of someone in our family.
The above painting of the Carisbrooke Castle was done in 1828 by the famous Englishman, William Turner. Turner did not use e at the end of Carisbrooke. To see a large photograph of an amazing suit of armor, please visit this website:
http://museumnetworkuk.org/talking/imggallery/buckhurstarmour.html
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