Bru
Well-Known Member
Well, that takes care of 'knife' - what about 'knee' and 'know'?
I suspect the 'k' in 'knee' to be Germanic in origin.
In German and Dutch 'knee' is 'knie' - but in German and Dutch the 'k' is not silent.
How's this for high-brow thread drift?![]()
Same basic origin for all of the silent 'k's in Modern English. All stems back to (theoretical*) Proto-Germanic language from which modern German, Dutch, English, Norwegian, Danish etc etc, are believed to have derived
* I say theoretical as the existence of a common Northern European language is a hypothesis based upon re-constructive studies, there are no known surviving original sources and a considerable amount of debate as to what extant there was a common root language (whilst it being generally accepted amongst the experts in the field that there was a common root which itself is thought to have been a development of the early Indo-European language)