Silent Letters
History of Words
Prefixes
Phonemes
Syllables
100
This silent letter would make "hors" into an English word.
What is "e"?
100
About a quarter of a million (250,000)
How many words are in the English Language?
100
This means "with".
What is "con"?
100
This is the smallest unit of sound in language.
What is a phoneme?
100
The word onomatopoeia has this many syllables.
What is "six"?
200
This silent letter used to be pronounced before the word "now".
What is "k"?
200
English borrows the most from this European language.
What is French?
200
This Latin prefix means "water".
What is "aqua"?
200
These letters can make the sound /k/.
What are c, k, ck, and ch?
200
The word "stamped" has this many syllables.
What is "one"?
300
This silent letter often precedes the letter r.
What is "w"?
300
This culture gave English the following words: muskrat, squash, succotash, quahog, totem, and Eskimo.
What is Native American?
300
This means "life".
What is "bio"?
300
This letter, both a consonant and a vowel, has four different sounds.
What is "y"?
300
In elementary school, many students learn to do syllables with this action.
What is clap?
400
This letter is silent in a vowel consonant -e syllable.
What is "e"?
400
Around the globe, this is the most widely recognized English word.
What is "ok"?
400
The prefix "pyro" (as in pyromaniac) comes from this language.
What is Greek?
400
These are the four consonant digraphs.
What are ch, sh, th, and wh?
400
The schwa appears in which syllable for the word "velvet"?
What is the second syllable?
500
The reason for the silent "e" in LOVE is this.
Why does no word in the English language end in "v"?
500
Most English prefixes and suffixes come from these two languages.
What are Greek and Latin?
500
The prefix "graph" has this meaning.
What is "to write"?
500
These two letters are required to make the sound \kw\.
What is "qu"?
500
This type of syllable ends with a consonant and has a short vowel sound.
What is a closed syllable?
M
e
n
u