In terms of phonetic transcription, which of these words has a silent letter?
In terms of phonetic transcription, which of these words has a silent letter?
In English, the word 'knee' contains a silent 'k', as in its phonetic transcription /niː/. Silent letters are common in English due to historical shifts in pronunciation whereby certain letters are no longer pronounced but remain in spelling. 'Cat', 'run', and 'tree' do not contain silent letters.